Russian security forces are detaining civilians off the streets and pressuring them to sign military contracts, as reports emerge that the Kremlin is preparing for a new wave of mobilisation for its ongoing all-out war in Ukraine. In mid-August, the Russian human rights project Idite lesom received 14 appeals from people who said security forces had detained them and forced or pressured them into signing military contracts, either at police stations or directly at military enlistment offices. The project, which helps Russians avoid taking part in the war, said the peak began on 10 August.
"There were only isolated round-ups in July, now we are at a peak," Ivan Chuvilyaev, a representative of the project, told Euronews. Reported cases span from Novorossiysk to Birobidzhan. Men have been detained on the street under the pretext of document checks or for drinking in public, at their workplaces, and on their way home.
Cases in the Penza region have been recorded since mid-June. In the same period, Idite lesom — whose name is a deliberate play on a Russian expression meaning "get lost" —reported seven cases of conscript soldiers being forced or pressured to sign contracts with the Russian Defence Ministry. Prison authorities are also being used as a recruitment channel.
Chuvilyaev said representatives of Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service are searching for potential contract soldiers in remand centres and colonies. Separately, civilian recruiters are targeting people in financial difficulty — such as debtors and the unemployed — through job advertisements, agencies and personal contacts. "If someone has money problems, the recruiters will find them," he said.
"People realise what they have got into only when they are already at the front." Since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, more than 80,000 people have sought advice from the project, according to Idite lesom. Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, have repeatedly said Russian authorities are preparing a new wave of mobilisation after the State Duma elections in September. Sources in Western intelligence told the Wall Street Journal that mobilisation-preparedness drills — covering accommodation, food supply and arming of residents — were conducted in the Kaliningrad region last month.
Russian state media reported separate exercises in the same region in July, describing them as focused on repelling drone attacks. Representatives of NGOs helping Russians leave the country have also reported a sharp increase in inquiries since mid-July. "It is reminiscent of the situation in 2022, early 2023," a coordinator of the German human rights initiative inTransit, who asked not to be named, told Euronews.
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