"If I am forcibly mobilized, I will kill myself"

Recruitment soldiers and forcing them to fight on the side of the occupier is a war crime. DW talked to Ukrainians and human rights activists about how Russian they put pressure on residents to do military service.

This spring saw the highest rate of military recruitment in Russia in the last 14 years. In late March, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a decree ordering the conscription of 160.000 men between the ages of 18 and 30. Their one-year service began on April 10.

The Ministry of Defense of Russia claims that the latest cycle of mobilization, which is carried out twice a year - in spring and autumn - has nothing to do with the war against Ukraine.

However, men from the Russian-occupied Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson are also called up for service.

According to the Ukrainian Eastern Human Rights Group (EHRG), at least 300 people from the occupied territories were recruited into the Russian army in the fall of 2024, including about 200 from Zaporozhye and Kherson, and 100 from Luhansk and Donetsk.

Little choice in the occupied territories

"If they forcefully mobilize me, I will kill myself," says Oleksiy (21)*. He lives in the Russian-occupied part of Zaporozhye and wants to stay with his family. "Wherever I go, I would have to start my life over," he says.

Although he now has a Russian passport, he has so far managed to avoid conscription. But, since last fall, the Russian occupation authorities have been requiring men to enlist in the army, Oleksiy says.

Without Russian papers, it is almost impossible to find a job or study at a university, he explains. Although he has not heard of cases of forced conscription, he says pro-Russian men volunteered for service in the Russian army and signed contracts.

Another man, a 28-year-old resident of an occupied village in the Luhansk region, describes the situation similarly. He has not yet accepted a Russian passport and says the occupation authorities are making life difficult for people like him.

For example, phone SIM cards cannot be purchased without Russian papers, because the telecommunications system is under Russian control. This is confirmed by human rights activists.

Pressure to fulfill the mobilization plan

Those who join the army are first sent to Russia for training - usually in the southern regions of Rostov and Krasnodar, but also near St. Petersburg or Moscow. Some are also sent to the illegally annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea.

According to Pavlo Lisyansky, a Ukrainian human rights activist and head of the Institute for Strategic Research and Security, the Russian army did not build barracks in the occupied territories for security reasons.

"After training, many recruits are sent to the front after signing a contract with the Russian army," says Lisyanski. "That decision is sometimes voluntary, but it is often made under duress, for lack of other options."

Only a few avoid being sent to the front, mostly with the help of connections or bribes, and are deployed near Moscow or St. Petersburg. According to Lisjanski, only a group of fifteen men managed to do this last year.

The reason is that the Russian army is under pressure to fulfill the mobilization plan. "They are trying to make up for the lack of regular soldiers with men who have already served their military service," he says.

Suspicious circumstances

One such case was described on the Telegram channel and focuses on the mobilization in the so-called Donetsk People's Republic. Thus, a man from the occupied part of Donetsk was sent to the Krasnodar region for military service and was told that after training he would be sent to the front.

"The commanders told him that everything was already signed in his name," Telegram channel author Mihail* told DW. The man turned to the Russian Military Prosecutor's Office for help, but his fate is unknown, says Mihail.

Only those who have accepted a Russian passport and are over 18 years old are not subject to military service. All those who completed their military service in the so-called "Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics" before February 2022 and the beginning of the Russian invasion are also required to serve in the army.

According to Mihailo, this includes former members of the separatist paramilitaries, which existed from 2014 to 2022, and who are now being sent to Russia for military service.

In addition, men of draft age from those areas are called to military offices to register for military service. "But I can't say to what extent," says Mihail.

Penalties for conscientious objection

It is practically impossible to refuse to serve in the Russian army, says Olha Skrypniuk, director of the Crimean Human Rights Group.

Russia began illegally recruiting men in 2015 – first in Crimea and then in other occupied parts of Ukraine, she says. "Before the invasion in February 2022, about six thousand people from Crimea were recruited every year, since the Russian annexation of the peninsula in 2014. We do not have exact data at the moment, but the numbers are probably increased," adds Skrypniuk.

Refusing military service in Russia can result in a prison sentence of up to two years. According to human rights organizations, at least 583 criminal proceedings have been initiated in Crimea alone.

However, according to the Russian online magazine Verstka, which is critical of the Kremlin, none of the defendants received prison sentences in the first half of 2024: three received probation and the rest received fines.

Forced conscription is a war crime

However, these punishments do not exempt anyone from serving in the Russian army, says Skrypniuk, stressing that recruitment in the occupied territories violates international humanitarian law, which constitutes a war crime.

Since 2022, Russia has been forcibly conscripting Ukrainians living in the occupied territories and often abusing them as "human shields," she says. "We know of cases where conscripted unarmed men were sent to the front ahead of the regular army, making them the first to come under attack from opposing forces. This was practiced en masse in 2022."

According to the Crimean Human Rights Group, during the invasion of Ukraine, Russia deployed numerous recruits from the annexed Crimea. Skrypnyuk says that since 2022, at least 1.873 members of Russian units from Crimea have died, while 116 Crimeans have been captured by the Ukrainian military.