Street raids for recruiting men for war spread in Russia, say rights activists
In Russian regions, men are detained right on the streets, taken to military recruitment points, and pressured into signing contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense. Relatives of the detainees and Russian human rights activists report such cases.
One such incident occurred in Omsk. According to the relatives of 31-year-old Dmitry, on August 8, the man was sitting on a bench with a bottle of beer when several people in civilian clothes drove up, detained him, and took him away in an unknown direction.
Later he reported that he was at the "Sirius 55" military recruitment point. Relatives say that they pressured the man there and forced him to sign a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense, and also issued him documents and bank cards. At the time, his passport and military identification card were still at home.
The relatives turned to the prosecutor's office, but they were asked to collect additional documents and come back. There is no independent confirmation of the circumstances surrounding the contract signing at this time.
This is not the first such report from Omsk. In July, a local resident was detained near a bus stop while returning from work in a state of mild alcohol intoxication. According to his son, the man was subjected to physical and psychological pressure for almost two days to convince him to sign a contract. He refused and was released after his relatives filed a missing person report.
The human rights project "Idite Lesom" (Go to the Forest) also reported forced recruitment in Ulyanovsk. According to its data, in June, a 52-year-old man was detained near an apartment building entrance and taken to a military commandant's office, where he was forced to sign a contract. Soon he ended up in occupied Mariupol. Another resident of the region, as human rights activists assert, was recruited despite having lost an eye.
Similar raids are being conducted in the Penza region. Police, together with military recruitment office employees, check men on the streets ostensibly to search for draft evaders, naturalized migrants who have not registered for military service, and servicemen who have left their units without permission. According to local residents' testimonies, during such raids other men are also detained, handed draft summonses, and pressured into signing contracts.
The director of the "Idite Lesom" project, Grigory Sverdlin, explains the intensified pressure by the fact that Russian authorities are finding it increasingly difficult to find volunteers to go to war against Ukraine. Recruiters pay special attention to people with debts, conditionally sentenced individuals, suspects in criminal cases, and recently demobilized conscripts.
Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, citing intelligence data, stated that Russia is preparing a new mobilization wave in the fall. According to him, after the so-called parliamentary elections, the Kremlin plans to additionally mobilize several hundred thousand people by the end of the year.
Based on materials from: The Moscow Times, Omsk Civil Association
