Four years after its invasion of Ukraine, Russia faces a problem: How will it continue recruiting between 30,000 and 35,000 men every month to make up for its front-line losses, all without declaring a general mobilization, which could spread panic, as occurred during the fall 2022 partial mobilization. The Kremlin has struggled to attract enough volunteers to join the army, despite the lure of generous bonuses and the promise of upward social mobility for recruits’ families. In recent months, recruitment campaigns have increasingly been bolstered by all kinds of enlistment practices, which increasingly resemble forced conscription.

“In Russia, you can live far from the war, absorbed in your daily routine, in a full state of apathy. In the background, Kremlin television constantly plays reports about our ‘heroes.’ The only real reminder of the war’s reality is when men are recruited,” said Yuri, 42, via a messaging app. As a father living in Yekaterinburg, a city in the Urals, he preferred to stay anonymous as a precaution. Alongside the military offensive in Ukraine, Russian police have intensified their repression against a supposed “fifth column” of dissidents. Like other men who criticize the Kremlin and oppose “this war that is not ours,” Yuri fears that he and his sons, who are still students, could eventually be sent to the front lines.

Since summer 2025, the regulatory framework has been reinforced: a conscription register was finalized, listing all Russian men who could be called up to fight in the event of a general mobilization. Another Kremlin decree, signed on December 8, 2025, authorized widespread military training for all Russians deemed fit to serve: They could now not only be conscripted into the armed forces, but also into the National Guard (an autonomous police force, under the Kremlin’s direct authority) or into the FSB intelligence service (one of the successors of the KGB).

‘Great creativity’

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