This spring and upcoming summer, 160,000 men will be drafted into military service in Russia. It marks the largest conscription campaign since 2011 and reflects the urgent need for soldiers at the front. Changes in the law have made more young men eligible for service, while new systems make it harder to avoid. Svetlana Satchkova uncovers the working mechanisms of this aggressive campaign, and of the growing shadow economy surrounding it.
A woman walks past a contract army service mobile recruitment point in Moscow, June 2023. Photo: ANP / Natalia Kolesnikova / AFP
In Russia, the military draft has become more aggressive and less visible. Changes in the law have made more young men eligible for service, while new systems make it harder to avoid. Police now track potential draftees using phone data and security cameras, and many people are forced or tricked into signing military contracts. In poor and remote areas, the pressure is often worse: men are taken from their homes, shelters, or workplaces and sent to the army without warning. Around this system, a shadow economy has grown, with people paying huge sums for fake documents, legal help, or medical exemptions. But even those who make it through the system often end up at the front, where conditions are so bad that many soldiers try to escape - hurting themselves, paying bribes, or simply running. For those who stay, the risk of injury, disappearance, or death is constant.
New draft measures
Under an order signed by President Putin on March 31, 160,000 men will be drafted into military service in Russia this spring and summer, between April 1 and July 15. This marks the largest conscription campaign since 2011 and reflects the urgent need for soldiers at the front. Russian authorities continue to insist that conscripts are not being sent to fight in Ukraine, presumably because Putin wants to avoid losing popularity with his electorate. For the same reason, he appears reluctant to initiate another large-scale mobilization like the one in late 2022. But in practice, draftees are actively being targeted for combat roles. Many are pressured, manipulated, or outright coerced into signing contracts that commit them to frontline service. Once they sign, there’s often no way out. While mandatory service lasts just one year, all military contracts, irrespective of a soldier’s age, are now considered indefinite under Putin’s 2022 decree.
All military contracts are now considered indefinite
Some of this draft expansion has been enabled by new legislation. As of 2024, Russia raised the upper age limit for conscription from 27 to 30, significantly enlarging the pool of eligible men. The same law permits individuals to sign military contracts from the age of 18 - even if they have no prior military experience. According to the BBC, Grigory Sverdlin, head of the human rights project Idite Lesom, says this change has made it possible for recent high school graduates to end up on the frontlines in Ukraine. Based in Tbilisi, Idite Lesom helps Russian citizens avoid conscription and assists active-duty soldiers who want to desert or surrender; the group and its founder have been labeled ‘foreign agents’ by the Russian state. ‘It’s clear the Ministry of Defense is trying to maximize the number of conscripts in hopes that many will convert to contract soldiers - either voluntarily or under pressure,’ Sverdlin explains.
He estimates that 20-25% of conscripts are subjected to some form of coercion to sign contracts. What once required at least three months of military service or a college degree can now happen on the very first day at the draft office. Often, conscripts are outright deceived with promises of easy, non-combat jobs and decent pay, but it’s usually a trap.
The state has also launched a broad effort to ensure compliance with the draft. The main changes in how conscription is carried out began in 2023, when Russia started creating an electronic registry of draft summonses. At the same time, the search for draft dodgers was increasingly handled not just by the inefficient and understaffed military enlistment offices, but also by the police, who now have access to mobile phone billing data and surveillance camera footage.
According to the human rights organization OVD-Info, the intensified enforcement led to a record number of raids in Moscow during the fall 2024 draft campaign. Idite Lesom reports that these methods have become more aggressive compared to earlier years. Project coordinators say they are aware of cases where men were beaten, held in draft offices without food or water, and forcibly made to take the military oath and put on a uniform. Enlistment office staff reportedly blocked access to lawyers, doctors, and even police officers called to document the abuse.
This spring, the same tactics appear to be in use. In late March - before the draft had even officially begun - there were reports of security forces storming several fitness centers in Moscow, forcing patrons to the ground and checking their documents. By mid-April, detentions were underway in earnest, with young men being stopped in the Moscow metro and taken to draft offices or police stations. In previous years, the draft in Moscow and Saint Petersburg was considered relatively mild, but this year, some experts say enforcement in the capital has been especially aggressive.
Beyond the draft: forced into contract service
In rural Russia, authorities appear to have doubled down on targeting men who are not eligible for the draft but can be pressured into signing contracts. According to investigative reporting by Verstka, in the Ivanovo region, socially vulnerable men - often unemployed, living in poverty, or in poor health - are being abducted and forced into service. Witnesses and relatives say men have been seized from their homes or lured away with false job offers, then coerced into signing military contracts. Maxim Andrievsky, a 46-year-old man with epilepsy and a broken ankle, was removed from the village of Nikonikha. His partner and neighbors later saw other local men, including 39-year-old Alexander Savelev, also being taken.
Families are denied information and often learn the truth only after their relatives have already been sent to the front. Oksana Turlapova’s brother, Vadim Valkov, who is blind in one eye, called her from an unknown number to say he was being taken to the front. Several victims lacked basic documents, phones, or bank accounts - yet accounts were later found in their names, receiving military payments through Promsvyazbank. Families suspect that, beyond forced enlistment, their loved ones’ pay is being accessed or stolen by those involved in the abductions. Some of the abductees haven’t resurfaced at all.
Help ons om RAAM voort te zetten
Met uw giften kunnen wij auteurs betalen, onderzoek doen en kennisplatform RAAM verder uitbouwen tot hét centrum van expertise in Nederland over Rusland, Oekraïne en Belarus.
In Siberia, a separate recruitment initiative has taken shape. According to reporting by Sibir.Realii, authorities have been visiting homeless shelters with flyers promising large enlistment bonuses, housing, and steady work after service. Some men sign up hoping to escape poverty or alcoholism, while others are pressured or misled. A former resident of a shelter near Angarsk called back to say that only two out of 50 men in his unit had survived. After refusing to serve as ‘cannon fodder,’ he was thrown into a pit-like makeshift prison. He asked for help getting out - and then stopped responding to calls. Volunteers say more than 50 shelter residents have disappeared since 2022, and only two have returned - both penniless.
The founder of a shelter in Irkutsk region said many of the men who signed contracts had little understanding of the risks. She described how two homeless men joined the army to earn money for housing after being kicked out by their wives. One former recruit returned after six months at the front. Though he had received a medal for saving a fellow soldier, he spent all his earnings on alcohol and ended up right back where he started.
A new shadow economy
Meanwhile, a vast black market has emerged to serve Russian civilians desperate to avoid conscription. Before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, buying a military exemption document (a so-called ‘white ticket’) could cost between 90,000 and 450,000 rubles ($1,100 and $5,600 under current exchange rate). After the announcement of mobilization, prices surged - by early 2023, forged exemption papers with a deferral-qualifying diagnosis were being sold on the dark web for over a million rubles (around $12,500). More elaborate schemes, such as fake medical records or staged diagnoses of chronic illness, could cost up to 7 million (around $87,000). Telegram channels posing as legal aid groups, like one called Pacifist, privately offered to make conscripts ‘disappear’ from draft databases for hundreds of thousands of rubles. Others sold spots in companies with military deferrals, such as the Ulan-Ude locomotive plant or forestry services - though new rules introduced in March 2025 have significantly narrowed the list of employers eligible for such exemptions.
Telegram channels posing as legal aid groups offer to make conscripts ‘disappear’ from draft databases for hundreds of thousands of rubles
Even legal assistance has been absorbed into the shadow economy. According to Meduza, a booming industry of private firms now promises to guide conscripts through the draft process, often charging exorbitant fees - 150,000 to 200,000 rubles (about $1,900 to $2,500) - for ‘support’ that rarely leads to real results. These firms claim they can help clients avoid conscription through legal means. In many cases, medical diagnoses that should disqualify draftees are simply ignored by local draft boards - something that is less likely to happen when a conscript is represented by a lawyer. However, human rights advocates warn that many of these firms function less as legal defense and more as intermediaries in a corrupt system. Some are run by former draft board staff or maintain personal ties to military officials and doctors. Elena Popova from the Conscious Objectors Movement criticized this ecosystem, arguing that ‘people are feeding the system that’s sending them to war.’ In Buryatia, human rights activist Nadezhda Nizovkina said the black market has become entangled with law enforcement: some doctors now cooperate with authorities to expose would-be draft dodgers, turning what once was a bribery scheme into a setup. Meduza also reports that some officials facing corruption charges, such as former draft officers Almaz Burganov and Sergei Trigilev, have avoided prosecution by signing military contracts and being sent to fight in Ukraine.
A relative of Russian soldiers taking part in war against Ukraine holds a placard reading "Free mobilized soldiers. Bring husbands, fathers, sons back!" as she protests in front of the Russian Ministry of Defence building in Moscow on January 6, 2024. Photo: ANP / Olga Maltseva / AFP
What awaits at the front
If efforts to avoid conscription fail, or if someone signs a contract and is deployed, the conditions at the front are often dire. Testimonies from returning soldiers describe extreme deprivation: many are sent into combat with little training, forced to live in makeshift shelters, scavenge for food, and go without medical care. Those who complain risk punishment: imprisonment in cellars, confinement in pits, or physical abuse. Some are sent on near-suicidal missions. Deaths are routinely concealed: in some cases, commanders have buried or burned bodies to avoid notifying families, and to evade compensation payouts.
As a result, many soldiers simply disappear. Verstka reports that Ukraine’s Want to Find project has received over 84,000 inquiries from Russian families searching for missing soldiers since early 2024 - most of them young enlisted men. More than 2,000 families have since received confirmation that their relatives were either killed or taken prisoner. The Donetsk region, particularly around Pokrovsk and Bakhmut, has the highest number of reported disappearances. August 2024 saw a spike in cases, coinciding with Russian offensives in Pokrovsk and Kursk. A disproportionate number of the missing served in the 15th, 132nd, and 9th brigades - units accused of conducting secret burials and falsely labeling the dead as deserters. Some families have petitioned President Vladimir Putin, demanding investigations.
Desertion, disobedience, and the price of escape
It’s no surprise that soldiers have grown desperate to leave the front. Some cut or burn themselves; others buy forged medical diagnoses. Many have paid to be ‘infected’ with hepatitis, faked psychiatric disorders, or bribed medics to implant shrapnel that would appear on scans. But as oversight has tightened, these schemes have become increasingly risky and expensive. Meduza reports that in May 2024, Russian contract soldier Nikolai was deployed to the front near Kurdiumivka - only to find his unit living in a sewer pipe, surviving on swamp water and scavenged grain. After being injured by mortar fire and exposed to gas, he began losing feeling in one arm. Desperate to escape, he shot himself in the leg with a makeshift shrapnel round and staged a fake drone strike with another soldier to disguise the injury. When doctors grew suspicious, he paid 300,000 rubles in bribes for safe passage. In total, he spent 1.1 million rubles - including 800,000 to a civilian surgeon - to secure his discharge. The group Idite Lesom later helped him leave Russia.
Russian contract soldier Nikolai was deployed to the front near Kurdiumivka - only to find his unit living in a sewer pipe, surviving on swamp water and scavenged grain
Driven by fear and hopelessness, many soldiers are simply fleeing. According to the BBC, desertion has reached record highs. In 2024 alone, Russian courts have been convicting around 800 soldiers each month for desertion, going AWOL, or disobeying orders - ten times more than before the war. Stories of soldiers hiding with relatives are increasingly common. One such case is Dmitry Seliginenko, who vanished after failing to return from medical leave. When police tried to arrest him in his home village, his stepfather intervened and was later prosecuted for assault. Seliginenko remains in hiding. In Buryatia, Vitaly Petrov spent months concealed in his mother-in-law’s house after deserting. He was eventually arrested in front of his young daughters. Both Petrov and his mother-in-law, Lidiya Tsaregorodtseva, were sentenced to prison - he for desertion, she for resisting the arrest.
The state’s response to desertion and surrender has grown increasingly severe, sending a clear message meant to deter others. One striking example is Roman Ivanishin, a soldier from Sakhalin who was captured by Ukrainian forces in June 2023 and returned to Russia during a prisoner exchange in January 2024. Upon arrival, he was arrested and charged with surrender, attempted surrender, and desertion. After 15 closed-door hearings, he was sentenced to 15 years in a maximum-security prison and stripped of his rank. Ivanishin was a civilian mountaineer and had no prior military experience. The message is unmistakable: it is better to die in combat than to be taken alive.
The message is unmistakable: it is better to die in combat than to be taken alive
At every stage, Russia’s conscription system runs on brute force and deception. Men are pushed into service through threats, lies, or violence, and many don’t fully understand what they’ve agreed to until it’s too late. The result is an army made up of people who never wanted to fight - unmotivated, poorly trained, and often desperate to escape. This kind of force may keep the war going, but it comes at a cost the state can’t admit: an army that is breaking down from the inside.
