Julia Paramonova (Vyorstka) — on June 26 2025
FAMILIES TRY TO BRING THEIR SONS BACK, BUT THEY DON’T ALWAYS SUCCEED
In Russian military units, conscripts are being forced to sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense. This is no longer an isolated occurrence: the problem has become systemic, with reports coming in from across the country, according to human rights activists. They use persuasion, promises of good money, and if the «carrot» doesn’t work, they threaten to put them in jail, send them to the front lines, beat them up, and bully them. How conscripts are sent to the front lines through deception and violence, and how their families try to save them — in the article «Вёрстка» (Vyorstka — Layout).
On June 27th, conscript Mikhail Vevier from Adygea was supposed to be discharged from military service. But on June 10th, the 21-year-old called his parents and said that he had signed a contract with the Ministry of Defense. As his mother Anastasia said in a video message, her son did so under pressure.
«They allegedly found some correspondence on his phone with a contractor, saying that he had asked him to get him some pills. He did not transfer any money, did not receive any pills, and the deal did not go through. Three officers put psychological pressure on him, saying that he faced three years under Article 228 Part 1 (Trans. note — from the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, CCRF), that he would be imprisoned, and from there immediately sent to the front lines for assault,» Anastasia said.
Mikhail is serving in Sakhalin, in military unit No. 51823. He had been persuaded to sign a contract and go to the front before. When persuasion failed, threats began, Anastasia told «Vyorstka».
«Don’t worry, you won’t be sent to the front line, you’ll just sit on the sidelines. You’ll serve your time and earn some money. When he refused, they started threatening him: “Sign it!” The officers started pressuring him, saying they had screenshots of his correspondence with a contractor who was selling pills. They said he was facing three years in prison. And if he was sent to prison, he would be thrown straight into the assault unit,» says Anastasia.
Mikhail told his mother that he had indeed written to an acquaintance who sold pills at the request of his friends. But the deal never went through.
«I think it was the contract soldier who turned him in. They pressured him, interrogated him, and convinced him that his son had already told them everything about him. That’s why he turned in Misha. After that, they started pressuring Misha. No further action was taken against him — they didn’t go to the prosecutor’s office, and they only did a medical examination for drugs after I protested. We then did our own medical examination, and my son is clean,» says Anastasia.
The unit commander informed the mother that Mikhail had signed the documents voluntarily. However, Anastasia does not believe this. At the beginning of his service, Mikhail recorded a video in which he stated that he did not intend to sign a contract, and if he did, it would be due to deception or physical and psychological pressure.
«He studies at Maikop State University, specializing in oil and gas. He took an academic leave of absence, and his plans are to return, finish his studies, and move north, where a job awaits him. There were definitely no plans for a contract, not even in my worst nightmare,» — Anastasia emphasizes. «His service ends on June 27th, and we are already thinking about balloons and cakes; we are going to meet him. When I heard about the contract, my hands dropped, I didn’t want to live, I didn’t know where to run. He is on Sakhalin, and I am here.»
The son told Anastasia that at least four others from his platoon had also been forced to sign contracts. One of his fellow soldiers had just turned eighteen.
«I think there are many more guys like that. [Commanders] do whatever they want, thinking that parents won’t travel a thousand kilometers to see them. At first, we were even glad that he was sent to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, not to the border. I said, “Son, the further you put it, the closer you’ll get it.” But this is how it turned out.»
Now, Anastasia says, her unit’s command assures her that she should have simply written a report in time and everything would have been canceled. «But I appealed [directly] to the battalion commander, and he said that the documents had been submitted and nothing could be reversed,» Anastasia says indignantly.
SYSTEMATIC PRACTICE OF COERCION
The first complaints from conscripts about being coerced into signing contracts with the Ministry of Defense were received about a year ago. Today, the number is growing day by day, explains Alexei Tabalov, director of the «Conscription School»:
«At first we thought it was an economic scam connected with the desire to earn from the uniform payments provided for signing a contract. However, when we looked into it further, we realized: no, it is not an economic fraud, but a human fraud. A systematic practice that was actually ordered by the command in the military units,» says Tabalov. «In the last month, the number of requests has increased, and they come from different regions of the country.»
Conscripts as «potential cannon fodder» are very convenient for commanders because they are subservient, emphasizes Ivan Chuvilyayev, press spokesman for the «Get Lost» movement:
«They are just as convenient as convicts, debtors, people with suspended sentences and microcredits. These are people who can be manipulated, who are in a submissive, practically slavish position. The system used to entice them into a contract is very complex: there are many methods, signals come from everywhere. And as far as we can tell, the main wave of coercion takes place in the early stages of military service, immediately after enlistment.»
«And what about the soldiers? They have a task and fulfill it as best they can. On the one hand, they don’t want to go to the front themselves, but on the other hand they want to keep what they have,» explains Alexei Tabalov. «I believe that human life has never been valued in Russia. And certainly not in the military units.»
«IN THE EVENT OF NON-RETURN, I ASK TO BE SENT TO THE MEAT ATTACK»
Two hundred to three hundred push-ups, 50 laps around the stadium in full kit — with body armor, gas mask and assault rifle. And all this at night. In the morning, you’re sent to duty. If you’re irreplaceable, you don’t sleep for one and a half to two days, says 19-year-old Nikita Zvezdov. According to him, the command exerted pressure on the conscripts in his military unit in this way.
Nikita comes from Krasnoyarsk and served in military unit no. 25573 in Sergeyevka near Ussuriysk, which in his opinion is one of the most criminal units in Russia.
«It’s constantly reported in the news. Sometimes someone’s head was cut off, sometimes someone was cheated. I also knew that soldiers have to sign contracts there. They are either forced to do so, beaten or put under psychological pressure,» says Zvezdov.
In Sergeyevka, accidents do indeed happen regularly. Concrete slabs and metal pipes fall on the heads of conscripts. In 2019, one of the soldiers was killed by a mine, and three soldiers died in 2018. There have been repeated reports of blackmail, beatings and death threats from the military unit. In 2017, a group of conscripts from the Caucasus were arrested for charging their comrades with extortion, according to local media reports.
As soon as Nikita arrived at the unit, they tried to persuade him to sign a contract. Quite quickly, the talks turned violent.
«At first, various people tried to persuade him with good words: How great it would be to sign a contract, to go to the sea every year and to serve in the Primorje region. Then the threats and physical violence began. They beat him in different ways, each in the way they could. Sometimes they incited other soldiers or the contract soldiers beat him. Sometimes one of the elders would hit him.»
Nikita says that an officer shot one of his comrades in the legs with a blank-firing pistol. To cover up the incident, the soldier was taken to hospital for three months: «This kind of thing happened all the time, it was quite normal for this unit.»
Nikita says that he collapsed after six months. He understood that he literally «couldn’t take it». But according to his military service record, he signed the contract even earlier, after just three months of service.
«I thought I would just hang up my shoes. So I decided to try and get out of the contract despite my injury — I would step on a mine or drink chlorine,» he says.
After signing the contract, Zvezdov landed at the training ground of the 150th Idritsko-Berlin Division in the city of Bikin in the Khabarovsk region. The soldiers were to be trained there before their deployment to Ukraine. According to Nikita, this training consisted largely of constant psychological pressure: «There was something new every day. We had a commander who threatened to send us all to Melitopol either in meat attacks or as scouts and motorized riflemen. That was our “training”, so to speak.»
A few days before his departure for Ukraine, Zvezdov asked his superiors for «rest before the fighting». With difficulty, but they let him go. At the same time, he received his first salary — 40,000 roubles. That was enough for the tickets to Krasnoyarsk. He was welcomed home by his mother. Nikita tried not to tell her about the horrors in his unit. He only said that he had no intention of returning there. His mother and his friends supported him. After a few days, his discharge was over.
«The captain wrote to me on WhatsApp that I should come back, everything would be fine, they would transfer me, come up with something, keep me in the unit. Of course, none of that was true. Nobody would have done anything. Also, before I was discharged, I had to write, “If I don’t return, please send me to the meat attack.” Something like that was in the document. Everyone signs it. In case they hide in Russia and are found,» Zvezdov recalls.
The human rights activists interviewed by Vyorstka say that such documents cannot be legally correct: «It’s more an element of discipline: if you escape, they will catch you, bring you back and put you “on the forecourt”,» Tabalov notes.
BLACKMAIL AND «BEAUTIFUL FAIRY TALES»
The violence in the units does not come immediately, human rights activists tell Vyorstka. It usually starts with attempts at persuasion. The conscripts are promised a «sweet life» — good career prospects, salary, service in the hinterland. The contract is supposedly for three to six months, if you don’t like it, you can cancel it, they tell them.
«The attempts at persuasion start on the train on the way to the military unit. They’re told they’re not men if they don’t sign up. Or they are intimidated: “If you don’t sign, we’ll send you to the front, to the slaughter, you’ll die immediately”,» explains Alexei Tabalov, director of the conscription school. «And then there is physical and psychological violence. The conscripts travel for two, three, four days, arrive tired at the unit, are locked up somewhere, are not given anything to eat, are not allowed to sleep and are taken so far that they don’t care that they can no longer defend themselves, even if they wanted to.»
«They are promised service at headquarters and far away from the front, the contracts themselves are presented as short-term, they even state a term of 1—3 years. Unfortunately, this is all a lie, as the contract is generally concluded with the Ministry of Defense and not for a specific position. The contracts are extended indefinitely on the basis of the mobilization decree,» says lawyer Timofei Vaskin, who works with the conscription school.
According to him, the following scheme has also been used more and more frequently recently: Conscripts are promised «studies» at a certain higher military educational institution.
«It is unclear whether they are actually taught there according to higher education programs or whether it is some kind of short-term courses, but at least two of our applicants have recently reported that they were forcibly sent to study. The studies themselves have not yet started, the situation is still fresh,» explains the lawyer.
Vaskin suspects that conscripts could be called up to military educational institutions due to the shortage of cadets. «It is not yet clear what this will look like in practice. Perhaps they will be sent to short-term courses and then to the front,» emphasizes the lawyer.
Nice promises were enough to get Sergei from Samara Oblast (name changed at his mother’s request) to sign a contract.
«Nobody beat them there. Once a week, special people just came, gathered everyone in a classroom and told them nice stories about a good life. They promised a high salary, an apartment, admission to a military college, a rank. You could almost have reached the rank of lieutenant or officer there,» says Sergei’s mother Anna (name changed at the request of the protagonist).
«I told him: “Look, they’re cheating you, they’re luring you there on purpose!”,» Anna says indignantly. «But he said: “They said that I would be a ’bplashnik’ (Trans. note — drone pilot), not on the front line, that I would go away for six months and then come back”.»
According to Anna, her son dropped out of the agricultural technical college in Samara Oblast a year ago and enlisted in the military. She doesn’t understand why. «He used to always say: “I’ll wait and see.” He had a girlfriend, maybe he fell out with her. In any case, he and a friend decided together to join the military. Maybe because of the money… He wanted to earn a lot of money, not live like us, who have to work hard for everything for years. He wanted it all at once.»
Before joining the army, his mother asked him not to sign any documents. Sergei seemed to agree. However, when he was in military unit No. 11666 in Khabarovsk, he called his mother and said that he had decided to sign a contract. She did not succeed in dissuading him. In October 2024, Sergei signed the documents and received the first payment of 195,000 rubles.
«I don’t know why it was this particular amount. Many people in Khabarovsk received around two million for their contracts. I told him to find out about the payments, but he replied: “I’m afraid to inquire because otherwise, God forbid, they’ll send me to some shitty place”,» Anna says.
In December 2024, Sergei ended up in the same military unit as Nikita Zvezdov, near Ussuriysk in the village of Sergeyevka. Anna remembers how horrified she was when she opened the conscripts’ parents’ chats: «When I found and read about this unit, my hair stood on end. There is only one exit there, straight into the “storm”. And that’s what happened. In January, my son was sent “to the front”. He went on his first deployment for ten days. But everything is different there than they say. He told me that it was cold and hungry. And the commander treated them like cattle. He said: “Whether you like it or not, you will still go into the storm under fire. You will be killed, others will be sent.” They didn’t even hide this.»
The son also talked about blackmail. It started in the unit in Khabarovsk, where the commanders demanded money from the soldiers.
«A commander came to me and asked: “Well, did you get the payments for your contract? Don’t forget, I own so and so much.” Another one came, then a third. Then they asked for money for the “needs of the unit”. That’s common there. All the Demob soldiers are always buying something: someone a sink, someone a TV, lawnmowers, shovels. My son told them that he hadn’t received the payments yet,» says Anna.
THE COMMANDERS EXPECT THAT NO ONE WILL CARE
Another way to improve the statistics on contract soldiers is to falsify documents. Since he is unable to persuade the conscript, the commander puts a fictitious signature on his behalf.
The first such case occurred over a year ago, when three conscripts — Viktor Baturin, Nikita Molochkovskii from Sakhalin and Nikita Borisov from the Krasnoyarsk region — unexpectedly received large sums of 300,000 roubles on their cards. The leadership of Sakhalin military unit No. 71435 explained that these were payments for contracts. The conscripts turned to the court, and it turned out that the commanders had signed the contracts for them and some other comrades. However, the soldiers no longer had time to appeal the decision. In the summer and fall of 2024, all three died at the front.
In the fall of 2024, conscripts from Chebarkul also received payments for contracts. The parents made a fuss — later the incident was described as a technical error in the Central Military District.
According to Alexei Tabalov, the director of the «conscription school», the leadership in Chebarkul itself signed the documents for the nine conscripts. The prosecutor’s office confirmed this, but the soldiers were not transferred from the contract back to military service.
«There is no way to refuse to sign the contract and not go to war. They can sign it for you or slip you some paper — here are your rations papers. Later it turns out that it was a contract that was secretly planted on you,» explains Chuviliaev.
In the military units, they commit crimes on the assumption that no one will investigate, says Alexei Tabalov. And if they do, they simply won’t have time to prove anything. Because to do so, you have to initiate legal proceedings and have a handwritten investigation carried out. But all that takes time, which a newly minted contract soldier simply doesn’t have.
«If you suddenly receive any payments, you must refuse the money immediately! And immediately file a statement with all the authorities: the Military Board of Inquiry, the Board of Inquiry, the military prosecutor’s office, write to the district command that someone signed a contract for me, which means that there is at least a forgery. And hire a good lawyer,» advises Tabalow.
YOU HAVE TO ACT QUICKLY
Publicity can help solve the problem. In Chebarkul, the parents of conscripts have joined forces, journalists have become aware of the situation and have opened a case. When the first problems arise, parents should be informed and a complaint filed with the military prosecutor’s office, say the lawyers interviewed by «Vyorstka».
All the more reason to act quickly if the contract has already been signed. According to the law, the conscript first signs a report on the signing of the contract. The report is then forwarded to the military commander’s office and then signed by the unit commander. This document circulation normally takes some time. And that’s when you can still challenge the procedure by submitting a report on the withdrawal of the report on the signing of the contract. But now the procedure is being accelerated more and more, says Tabalow:
«Now the contract is often submitted for signature immediately. And once you’ve signed it, it’s all over. We can say a million times over that these acts are illegal. Yes, you can later apply to withdraw the old report. But firstly, you can hardly ever make this request, and secondly, the practice does not comply with the law. And all these challenges, if any, will take a long time, and the person will already go to the Special Military Operation (SMO) and finish his way there.»
Ultimately, however, it all depends on which commander you meet, says the lawyer. In any case, the signing must be contested.
Today, lawyers also recommend alternative routes. This can be evacuation from the country, which is what «Get Lost» and «Goodbye, Guns!» are all about. Or even deliberately initiating criminal proceedings for desertion.
«20,000 people are currently affected by such criminal proceedings (according to Mediazona, around 16,000 criminal cases for refusal to serve were filed in Russian courts by the end of 2024). Many make a conscious decision to do so and swap the front line for prison. The easiest way to do this is to refuse to carry out an order, for which you get up to three years in a penal colony. And that guarantees that you stay alive. However, it is currently becoming increasingly difficult to get a criminal record. The law enforcement agencies have seen through this and are trying to send people back to the front at this stage,» explains Tabalow.
The best way to avoid problems with the army is not to go there in the first place, which is still legally possible, says Tabalow. These are deferments, exemption from military service for health reasons and alternative service — although it takes a long time to obtain it, you can’t be called up during the process.
«There’s even an exotic route that wouldn’t even have been recommended in the past: criminal proceedings for conscientious objection. This is relatively easy to achieve. You have to evade conscription for proceedings to be initiated. Then it goes to court, then a fine — which you can pay in installments. And then you can’t be called up for military service for a year after paying the fine. Under favorable circumstances, you then have one and a half to two or three years to come up with another strategy,» says Tabalow.
The fines under this article are up to 200,000 roubles, but as a rule the courts impose about half that amount. It’s definitely cheaper than trying to buy a draft card, for example, explains the lawyer. According to him, you can «get» such a criminal case several times and thus delay the draft.
According to Article 328 Part 1 CCRF, other types of punishment are also possible, including a six-month prison sentence and deprivation of liberty for up to two years. However, according to «Vyorstka», from the beginning of the war until the beginning of 2025, not a single conscientious objector was sentenced to actual imprisonment; all of them received fines.
«If you have a 17-year-old boy, you have to think about how he can avoid the army. There’s alternative civilian service, the military medical commission, deferments for study, there are categories of fitness. You have to take care of all that! Because once you get into the mills, it’s very difficult to get out again. Practically impossible,» emphasizes Chuviliaev from «Get Lost». «Of course, there is still the option of desertion, but that requires enormous courage. Not everyone is able to do that.»
«Today, either indifferent, detached people join the army or those who have no realistic information about what is going on there,» Tabalov is convinced. «They think they will get through. Or they really aren’t intellectually capable of understanding that the army is synonymous with death.»
«IT’S NOT THEIR CHILDREN WHO GO THERE, THEY SIT AT HOME»
The entire system of signing contracts is designed to ensure that few will take action against it, according to the human rights activists interviewed by «Vyorstka». Even after turning to lawyers, conscripts can back out if their commanders start to intimidate them. Many parents try to avoid public reporting for fear of harming their children.
Some mothers of conscripts who initially decided to speak out publicly refused to comment to Vyorstka after some time, citing threats from military unit commanders.
«I don’t want to go to prison for 15 years, they are threatening me with prison anyway so that I delete everything,» said one of them.
The parents of Mikhail Vevier are ready for maximum publicity. They are currently trying to challenge the signing of the contract and have already called in a military lawyer — but they know that time is running out.
«We have an eight-hour time difference. During the day we sit quietly, but at night we become active. I have already contacted the military prosecutor’s office and recorded a video message. My son says that they are preparing for an inspection in the unit, woke everyone up at five in the morning, conducted a search and confiscated the phones. As the boys say, the leadership of the unit specifically sat on their asses, they are hanging by a thread,» says Anastasia Vevier.
Nikita Zvezdov was able to desert from the army: «When I came home from the unit to Novosibirsk, human rights activists advised me to leave. I started thinking about what things I could sell. I had just received a payment of 400,000 roubles for my contract. I bought a ticket for a direct flight from Krasnoyarsk to Yerevan. And flew away.»
Now Nikita is nineteen, he lives in a hostel in Yerevan, works as a waiter’s assistant and plans to move to Europe.
«It’s dangerous to stay in Armenia. I don’t make a secret of where I am, but if the government is replaced by a more Russia-friendly one, I’ll have to move away. There’s also a problem with my passport — it expired a long time ago and I can’t renew it. At the moment, only two countries issue humanitarian visas for deserters: France and Germany. However, France has actually only issued seven visas and Germany has not issued any so far. So my only option is to save money for a fake passport,» says Nikita honestly. According to him, a «fake» non-biometric passport, which cannot be checked in databases, costs around 200,000 roubles.
Nikita says that an acquaintance of his was able to buy such a passport with delivery from Russia — and traveled to Germany with it. Zvezdev himself wants to do voluntary work for the time being — he hopes that this will help him to get a humanitarian visa.
Sergei from the Samara region, who was persuaded to sign a contract, died on February 26, 2025 during his second combat mission. He was hit by a drone near the village of Burlatskoye in the Donetsk region. His mother Anna did not find out immediately and continued to search for him for several months.
«My son was considered missing. I hoped until the end that he had either been captured or UDMU (Trans. note — unauthorized desertion from the military unit),» Anna laments. «If I hadn’t looked for him myself, I wouldn’t have found him to this day. Nobody needs anyone! Can you imagine that? We called the hotline, we called the unit. And we were told: he’s in the field, he’s in hospital, he’s still somewhere. I hoped, I waited. At some point I found a photo of a prisoner on the Internet, a copy of my son, a copy! Kursk orientation, but suddenly my son escaped, I don’t know… And in reality he died, was hit by a drone and burned alive.»
It was not until April that Sergei’s body was transferred to his home country in a zinc coffin. Anna asked the local funeral home to saw a window in the coffin lid to make sure she was burying her son.
«And I recognized him,» Anna recalls. «On May 8th, we buried him, with all the honors and all the… bells and whistles. And I thank God that they took him out and I was able to give him to the earth. Only a few have learned who their son died with, who they buried. Most of them lie there, in that damned Burlak region.»
Her son did not receive any payments for signing the contract, says Anna, which was justified by the fact that he was not a resident of Khabarovsk. Now she is trying to get this money and has turned to the military prosecutor’s office. At the same time, she is trying to warn other parents of conscripts on social media to protect their sons.
«Why am I writing to the mothers? Because the children are being betrayed!» Anna shouts, bursting into tears. «Please look after your children. Don’t let them sign any contracts! Don’t even let them join the army! Because the commanders don’t care, it’s not their children who are going there, their children are sitting at home and our children are suffering. There’s such chaos everywhere — it’s impossible!»