A scene filmed on June 17 in Penza, a regional city of around half a million residents southeast of Moscow, showed a white van in the dark, with several men sitting inside while screams, sobbing, and calls from women trying to understand what was happening could be heard outside.
One of them shouted at a soldier in camouflage uniform as he forcibly shut the vehicle’s door. Another, in tears, made the sign of the cross toward one of the men and cried out: “Lyosha! I love you!”
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The woman who recorded the video asked whether the men had signed the contract of their own free will and whether they had been forced to do so. As the van began to pull away, another woman stepped in front of it in an attempt to stop it.
According to witnesses and relatives who spoke to Radio Free Europe (RFE), the men had been detained on the street a day earlier and then forcibly taken to a military recruitment office, where they were made to sign contracts to be sent to the war in Ukraine.
“Of course, all of this looks like unlawful coercion. My father had no intention of going to war; we discussed this with him,” one woman said. “I see no other explanation for this except threats, violence, or pressure.”
Like the other people who spoke to RFE, she asked that her identity not be made public, or that a false name be used, to avoid repercussions from the authorities.
Russia’s war in Ukraine has now entered its fifth year. Although Ukrainian forces have managed to hold off Russian troops, Moscow continues to struggle to secure major gains on the front.
The cost of the war remains very high for both sides. According to British intelligence and other Western estimates, Russia has suffered nearly 500,000 killed, while the number of wounded is believed to be at least twice as high.
Although both countries have had trouble replacing their losses, Russia has been more effective, relying not only on financial incentives but also on threats and the use of force. However, according to experts, this year the situation has entered a new phase.
There is growing speculation that the Kremlin could undertake a second major mobilization, perhaps as early as this autumn, a development that would once again send deep shockwaves through Russian society, as happened in September 2022.
At the same time, recruiters appear to be increasingly using coercive methods to force men to agree to take part in the war. Residents of Penza say police are no longer stopping only men on the street, but have also begun carrying out door-to-door checks.
Lyudmila, a resident of the town of Kamenka west of Penza, said she had spent several days near the main recruitment office in Penza trying to find her son, who she said had been taken off the street. “This is terrible. People are practically being abducted. Something must be done, but I don’t know what,” she said.
Two days after the video was posted on the social network VK, law enforcement authorities dismissed as “false” reports that the men were being forced to sign contracts. The video was later deleted from VK.
In Ukraine, the seizure of men from the streets for military service and their transfer to recruitment centers has caused major debate. There, the practice is known as “busification,” a term linked to the vans officials use to patrol the streets in search of men evading conscription or of military age.
In Russia, apart from the general mobilization decree announced by President Vladimir Putin in September 2022, which mainly targeted reservists, the authorities have managed to avoid imposing a full compulsory nationwide call-up.
To secure recruits, the authorities have used a combination of payments from the federal and regional budgets along with other incentives, persuading hundreds of thousands of men to voluntarily sign contracts for the war in Ukraine. This money has had a major impact especially in Russia’s poorer and more rural areas.
Pressure has also been exerted on conscripts, who under the rules are not supposed to be sent into combat, to sign military service contracts.
The authorities have also violated rules prohibiting the deployment of conscripts to war. Recruiters have forced or pressured newly mobilized young men to sign contracts just a few months after beginning compulsory service.
In one case, a conscript sent to a military camp on Sakhalin Island in the Pacific reported that an officer ordered punitive marches to force them to sign, and even forged signatures on volunteer contracts.
Another source of recruits for the authorities has been prisoners, who have been offered pardons in exchange for being sent to the front. Migrant workers have also been targeted, with promises of a fast-tracked path to Russian citizenship if they agree to fight.
According to experts, this year the pace of Ukrainian drone attacks has approached the pace of Russia’s recruitment process. This has forced recruiters to raise wages and bonuses for new volunteers and, as is alleged in the Penza case, has prompted the use of harsher physical methods.
Margarita, another woman from Penza, said her son was detained and taken to the recruitment center without any documents. According to her, the paperwork to send him to Ukraine was prepared within an hour.
“He managed to call me and quietly said: ‘They’re taking me to Ukraine,’” she told RFE. “You could tell that by then he had already given in to going.”
“I screamed: ‘Why did you sign it?’” she said. “He replied: ‘I had to.’ I’m sure they beat him. He had no intention of going to war.”
Human rights activists say the arbitrary detention of men and forcing them to sign contracts for war is not limited to Penza, but is also appearing in other regions.
Valery, a lawyer who advises soldiers on legal matters, said men are detained under the pretext of identity checks. According to him, the checks are aimed at finding out whether they are wanted for desertion, or whether they are migrants who recently obtained Russian citizenship without registering with the local recruitment office.
“People are being snatched right off the streets,” he said. “Before, it was mostly drunk passersby who were targeted; now they are taking men of all ages and in any condition.” “Now this has spread across the whole country,” he said.
Russian law prohibits conscripts from serving in war zones, but according to reports there are ways to get around this ban.
In Vladivostok, a Pacific port city, 26-year-old Yaroslav Kubov was detained on June 9 while returning home from a friend’s birthday party. According to his relative Igor, two men in civilian clothes invited him to have a beer and, after he refused, grabbed him and took him out of the city.
According to Igor, Kubov was beaten and berated. The authorities then issued him a new passport and military ID and transferred him to Rostov-on-Don, a southern city that serves as a military transit point for Ukraine, from where he contacted relatives five days later.
Igor told RFE that Yaroslav had no reason to want to fight in Ukraine and had no need for money. He added that relatives are filing complaints with the military police and prosecutors.
Relatives of Yaroslav Kubov said he was taken off the street in Vladivostok after a birthday party. He called weeks later from a western city known as a staging point for troops heading to Ukraine.
Relatives of Yaroslav Kubov said he was taken off the street in Vladivostok after a birthday party. He called weeks later from a western city known as a staging point for troops heading to Ukraine.
“If he does not manage to escape, there will be no legal way to get him out,” Igor said.
Artyom Nikolayev, another resident of Penza, said a 53-year-old relative of his was detained while returning late from work and forced to sign a contract. According to him, the family searched for him for three weeks until he finally contacted them from Rostov-on-Don.
“He is shaken, and we are all shaken here. It is simply dangerous for men to walk the streets of Penza now,” he told RFE. “It doesn’t matter whether you are older, sober, or have documents; anyone can be seized.”
Arina, a resident of Spask, a town northwest of Penza, said that on June 19 authorities broke down the door of her neighbor Sergei while looking for him.
“They shouted at him, demanding that he show them his documents immediately. He refused, so they broke down the door” and took him into a waiting van, she told RFE. “I don’t know where he is now.”
“This is not happening only in Penza. Traffic police and enforcement vans are out on the roads,” she said. “Now it is not only the streets that are dangerous; soon we will have to hide at home to avoid forced entries.”
Arina added that another relative of hers in the village of Kamenka was confronted by police and court bailiffs, who claimed he had credit debt. When they tried to take him by force, his children clung to him while his wife tried to stop them from dragging him away.
“They twisted his arm, threw the children aside, and took him out of the house. After he was in the car, she managed to hand over copies of the credit documents,” she said.
“But they clearly did not care. The goal was to take him to the recruitment office. Like a cow to slaughter.”
According to Artyom Klyga, a lawyer with the nongovernmental organization Conscientious Objectors, similar stories have been heard for years, but in Penza they have drawn particular attention because of the scale of the raids, detentions, and families’ reactions.
“Often you do not need to beat or torture a person. It is enough to frighten him with the possible consequences for himself or his family,” he told RFE. “People are under intense psychological pressure and make decisions out of fear.” /RFE
