4.1.3. Mobilisation

4.1.3. Mobilisation

On 21 September 2022, President Putin issued a decree on ‘partial mobilisation’ to draft 300 000 men into the army.725 Officials claimed that the mobilisation efforts ended on 31 October 2022.726 Since then, military recruitment has focused on the enlistment of volunteers who enter military service under contracts with the Ministry of Defence (MoD).727 However, as the presidential decree on ‘partial mobilisation’ sets no official end date,728 persons drafted between 21 September 2022 and 31 October 2022 cannot leave the military service.729

During the ‘partial mobilisation’ held between in that period, numerous irregularities in the mobilisation process were reported.730 Uncertainty over the profiles of people who would be drafted created widespread panic across the country.731 In an interview with the Danish Immigration Service (DIS) and the Swedish Migration Agency, scholar Mark Galeotti noted that around 900 000 men fled Russia following the announcement of the mobilisation.732

Since 2024, the Russian military command has repeatedly demanded organising another wave of ‘partial mobilisation’, claiming that 350 000 – 400 000 additional soldiers and junior soldiers should be recruited to defeat the Ukrainian Armed Forces.733 In mid-June 2025, the deputy head of the MoD’s Main Military-Political Directorate and commander of Akhmad special forces, Apti Alaudinov, reportedly suggested to mobilise 500 000 to 1 000 000 soldiers in a new mobilisation wave. As noted by ISW, the immediate rejection of this proposal by Russian high-ranking officials shows their commitment to continue ‘volunteer and crypto recruitment’ and to avoid another mobilisation to prevent societal backlash.734 In Mid-October 2025, ISW noted that Russia was ‘unlikely to conduct a large-scale involuntary reserve mobilisation.’735

In September 2025, Timofey Vaskin, head of the legal department of the Russia-based NGO Shkola prizyvnika (School of Conscript), and Sergey Krivenko, head of the Russia-based human rights group Citizen.Army.Law, told Novaya Gazeta Europe that their organisations had not observed any cases of individuals being summoned or conscripted specifically under the ‘partial mobilisation’ decree since November 2022.736 Artem Klyga, a lawyer specialising in military issues, indicated that summonses sent out in September and October 2022 would no longer lead to call-up, including for people returning to Russia.737As noted by a human rights lawyer in an interview with EUAA at the end of October 2025, up to that date, there was no information about criminal cases being initiated against persons who left Russia to avoid mobilisation.738