Russian Federation (former member state)

Previous reports: 2024 | 2023/24

Principal EBCO concerns

• Alternative civilian service is punitive and discriminatory, inter alia, in terms of duration.

• No right to conscientious objection exists for serving military personnel, mobilised persons, or reservists.

• Forced recruitment of vulnerable groups and foreign nationals into military service. Systematic coercion of conscripts to sign military contracts through deception, threats, and violence.

• Repression against human rights defenders assisting conscientious objectors, Elena Popova, Maria Bontsler, Artem Klyga.

As reported by EBCO’s Russian member, the Movement of Conscientious Objectors:²

Developments

“Year-round” conscription

The traditional spring and autumn cycles have been fundamentally altered. From 1 January 2026, medical examinations and draft boards operate throughout the year, although physical deployment to military units remains limited to April–July and October–December. Draft decisions are now valid for one full year.

Digital registry

Following its launch in July 2025, the Unified Military Register became fully operational. Digital summonses are now sent on a mass scale through the Gosuslugi portal, triggering immediate legal restrictions and travel bans in cases of non-appearance.

Further restrictions on medical exemptions

Amendments to the Schedule of Diseases significantly weakened health requirements for military service. A number of psychiatric conditions were removed from Category “D” (unfit for service), and persons with hypertension and certain infectious diseases became eligible for service. At the same time, the authority of independent medical commissions was reduced, making it extremely difficult to challenge health categories in court.

Repression against human rights defenders

The state intensified pressure on those defending the rights of conscripts.

Elena Popova of the Movement of Conscientious Objectors was charged in August 2025 with spreading “fake” information about the army in connection with a human rights livestream.

Maria Bontsler, a 64-year-old veteran lawyer, was arrested in May 2025 on accusations of passing information to “unfriendly states”; colleagues viewed this as retaliation for her long-standing human rights work.

Artem Klyga, a lawyer representing conscientious objectors was officially designated as “foreign agent”.

• Forced recruitment and the “contract in exchange for passport” scheme: By early 2025, voluntary interest in contract military service had reportedly fallen tenfold compared with 2024. In response, the authorities turned to coercive methods.

• Foreign nationals: most foreigners, except Belarusians, are now in practice unable to obtain a residence permit or Russian citizenship without signing a military contract.

• Vulnerable groups: aggressive recruitment practices target prisoners, debtors, homeless persons, and people suffering from addictions.

Conscription provisions and procedures

In 2025, fixed-term compulsory military service remained mandatory in the Russian Federation.³ Mobilisation for military service in the combat zone of the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine, announced on 21 September 2022, also remained in force.

Systematic pressure is placed on conscripts to sign contracts on their first day of service through deception, threats of being sent into “meat-grinder” assaults, or physical violence.

Reserve service

Up to 2025, failure to appear for reserve training after receiving a summons entailed administrative liability only, punishable by a fine. Since the autumn of 2025, additional restrictions apply to those who fail to appear after receiving a summons. These include prohibitions on: registering property rights to real estate, driving motor vehicles, registering vehicles, obtaining loans or credits, registering as self-employed or as an individual entrepreneur.

Such restrictions are imposed by military commissariats, although the state bodies responsible for implementing them (tax authorities, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, banks, etc.) have not yet developed operational systems to enforce them effectively. It is expected that the system will be fully operational in 2026.

Draft evasion

In 2024, 924 persons were convicted under Article 328(1) of the Criminal Code (evasion of conscription), according to statistics from the Judicial Department of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. Most defendants were sentenced to fines ranging from 5,000 to 100,000 roubles (~50 to 1,000 euros). Although the law allows imprisonment or compulsory labour for up to two years, custodial sentences are rarely imposed. Only 21 individuals received fines exceeding 100,000 roubles.

There is still no official data for 2025.

Conscientious objection provisions and procedures

In 2025, the increase in the number of citizens performing alternative civilian service in Russia continued.⁴

Based on the official data available at state level, it may be concluded that 3,212 persons were performing alternative civilian service by the end of 2025. This is the highest figure recorded in the last 14 years.

The general duration of alternative civilian service is 21 months. For citizens assigned to organisations of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, other troops, military formations and bodies, the duration is 18 months. In practice, however, assignment to organisations within the Armed Forces is no longer used. In contrast, compulsory military service lasts 12 months.

As of 2025, a person performing alternative civilian service receives a salary according to the wage system of the institution where they are assigned. The minimum wage in Russia, as of January 1, 2025, is 22,440 rubles (€221.49) per month.

Military conscripts receive 2,750–2,800 roubles (approximately €25.92–€26.39) during the first 11 months of service and 5,550–5,600 roubles (approximately €52.31–€52.78) during the final month.

The list of positions and organisations for alternative service placements was expanded in 2025 and included 271 professions and around 1,600 organisations across the country.

Voluntary recruitment

In 2025, two conscription campaigns were conducted for men aged 18–30.⁵

Spring draft (1 April – 15 July): 160,000 persons
Autumn draft (1 October – 31 December): 135,000 persons.
Total: 295,000 conscripts.

Official data on the number of volunteers signing contracts in 2025 have not been published. However, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev stated that 422,704 people signed contracts during that year.

Conscientious objection during and after military service

Servicemen, whether performing compulsory conscription service or serving under a contract, including those mobilised for the war in Russia and Ukraine, cannot ask for release on grounds of having developed conscientious objection due to lack of legislation, and such applications will be denied.

A key feature of 2025 was the tightening of sentences and the effective absence of any mechanism for exercising the right to refuse service on grounds of conscience for serving military personnel.

According to data from the Judicial Department of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation and independent monitoring summaries, more than 11,500 cases relating to various forms of evasion of military service were brought before military courts in 2025.

Article 337 (unauthorised absence): more than 10,000 cases. This was the dominant offence. In most cases, the conduct was classified under Article 337(5), that is, absence from a unit during mobilisation or hostilities for a period exceeding one month.

Article 338 (desertion): between 750 and 900 cases. The relatively lower number is explained by the difficulty of proving the required direct intent to abandon service permanently.

According to our estimates, persons expressing anti-war or religious convictions accounted for 15–20% of all defendants in cases concerning refusal of service. In judicial practice, a substitution trend was observed: cases involving persons openly declaring conscientious or religious objections were often reclassified from evasion-related offences to Article 332 of the Criminal Code (failure to obey an order). This allowed the investigation to disregard arguments based on conscience and instead treat the conduct as a disciplinary breach in conditions of hostilities.

Attempts by mobilised citizens, including representatives of Protestant denominations and Jehovah’s Witnesses, to obtain judicial recognition of a right to substitute service with alternative civilian service were rejected in the overwhelming majority of cases in 2025, approximately 98%.

By the end of 2025, the courts had shifted to a policy of “zero tolerance”, which was reflected in sentencing patterns.

Reservists

In Russia, there is no separate legislation governing refusal of reserve service on grounds of conscience.

The Federal Law No. 113-FZ “On Alternative Civilian Service” applies only to conscripts and not to reservists. However, in principle, Article 59(3) of the Constitution of the Russian Federation may be interpreted as allowing such an application.

For example, the Ruling of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation of 23 November 1999 No. 16-P states that the constitutional right to alternative civilian service is directly applicable and does not require additional legislative implementation. Nevertheless, this ruling has had no practical impact on judicial practice concerning reservists objecting on grounds of conscience, despite the formal status of Constitutional Court rulings as directly binding and not requiring confirmation by other authorities or officials under Article 79 of the Federal Constitutional Law of 21 July 1994 No. 1-FKZ “On the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation”.

In practice, there have been reservists who applied for alternative civilian service upon being summoned for military training exercises.

While such an application does not prevent the imposition of a fine for failure to appear, or the forcible delivery to the military commissariat for transfer to military training, in some cases we have observed that the military commissariat made no further attempts to summon such reservists.

1. Military expenditure figures are estimates published by SIPRI (The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) in April 2026.↩︎
2. More info about the organisation at: https://stoparmy.org↩︎
3. Cf. EBCO Annual Report 2024 for details on legal provisions for conscription: https://ebco-beoc.org/russia/2024↩︎
4. Cf. EBCO Annual Report 2024 for details on the legal provisions and practices around alternative civilian service: https://ebco-beoc.org/russia/2024↩︎
5. Cf. EBCO Annual Report 2024 for details on the legal provisions around voluntary service: https://ebco-beoc.org/russia/2024↩︎