Russia has shifted to a year-round conscription system. Here’s what that means for the country’s young men.
April traditionally marks the start of Russia’s spring conscription campaign for mandatory military service. But this year, things have changed — conscription now runs year-round. Much about how the new system works is already becoming clear: restrictions on draft-eligible men are being imposed more often, enforcement is tightening, and the risk of ending up in a combat zone remains high. To understand how the process is changing and what risks potential conscripts and their families face, Meduza spoke with lawyers specializing in military law.
How conscription is changing
Since January 1, Russia’s mandatory military conscription — not to be confused with wartime mobilization — has become a year-round process. While new recruits are still sent to the army twice a year, enlistment offices now operate continuously, rather than only during the traditional spring and fall draft campaigns.
From the start of the year through the end of March, young men were summoned to enlistment offices, where they underwent medical exams and appeared before draft boards. By April, some had been declared unfit for service on health grounds, while others received call-up notices. Those deemed eligible are now being sent to military units between April 1 and July 15.
The cycle then repeats: preparatory procedures resume ahead of the fall draft, followed by deployments from October 1 through December 31.
Another major change, introduced in 2025, extends the validity of draft decisions. They now remain in force for a full year after being issued — a shift that, according to Timofey Vaskin, a lawyer with the human rights project Shkola Prizyvnika (Conscript’s School), tilts the balance sharply against conscripts trying to avoid service.
“Previously, a draft decision was valid only for a single conscription cycle — just three months,” he said. “Even if a conscript had already gone through all the required procedures, he could use relatively simple tactics to drag the process out until the campaign ended. When the next draft cycle began, everything would start over from scratch. That made it possible to delay things for quite a long time. Now, in effect, that’s no longer possible.”
A recently announced law further tightens the system: appealing a draft decision in court will no longer automatically suspend deployment. In other words, exploiting procedural loopholes to avoid service is becoming nearly impossible.
A small upside
Because deployment to military units is still tightly tied to fixed seasonal windows, those with legitimate grounds for exemption can now secure deferments or exemption without the immediate risk of being sent to the army. The new system effectively creates more breathing room.
This is especially relevant for residents of Moscow, who risk being rounded up, says Artyom Klyga, a lawyer with the Movement of Conscientious Objectors.
“Before, once a draft decision was issued, you could be forcibly taken away in Moscow at any moment,” he explains. “Now, that’s only possible between April 1 and July 15. If someone was in court from February to April, they weren’t at risk. It’s become somewhat safer to attend medical exams between January and April, or from mid-July to October.”
More restrictions, more enforcement
Lawyers Meduza spoke with say restrictions on conscripts’ rights are being applied more broadly — and more often.
Under the current system, a travel ban is triggered the moment a draft notice appears in the electronic registry. Because the draft process now runs year-round, that can happen at any time. Any notice — even one issued simply to update personal information — results in a ban on leaving the country. Previously, this could be avoided outside the formal draft periods.
At the same time, enforcement has been uneven. According to Timofey Vaskin, after restrictions began to be widely applied in September 2025, reports that border guards stopped people from leaving were often outnumbered by accounts of people who, despite receiving travel ban notifications, were able to exit Russia without issue. Other types of restrictions were rarely enforced in practice.
That now appears to be changing. In March — just as the spring deployment period began — there was a noticeable increase in cases where the FSB blocked people from leaving the country at the airport, says Artyom Klyga. In his view, the system is being refined in real time: what were once isolated incidents are becoming weekly occurrences.
Authorities, he adds, are also learning to apply other restrictions. In March, lawyers began receiving more complaints from people denied driver’s licenses or blocked from completing property transfer transactions. These are among the first cases where restrictions are not only recorded in the system but actually communicated to other state bodies, which can then directly refuse to provide services.
These restrictions can be appealed — for example, if a person failed to appear at a draft office for a valid reason. Rights groups are already testing this route, starting with appeals filed through Gosuslugi, the government’s public services portal. For now, though, it’s unclear how effective this approach will be.
Officials say conscripts won’t be sent to war. Is that true?
No. While that’s the rule on paper, in reality it doesn’t work that way.
For one thing, conscripts are being deployed to areas along the border with Ukraine, where they are said to be carrying out “counterterrorism operations.” In reality, as Vaskin puts it, these are places where “drones are flying, missiles are landing, and sabotage groups are active.”
Another risk is pressure to sign military contracts. According to Grigory Sverdlin, the founder of Get Lost, an organization that helps men escape Russian military service, complaints about coercion have surged. In March alone, 101 conscripts contacted the group seeking help to desert — accounting for 40 percent of all such requests. A year earlier, that figure was significantly lower, at around 10–15 percent.
“We hear from the conscripts themselves, as well as from their mothers, friends, and relatives,” Sverdlin says. “The script is always the same: they’re told they’ll serve in a regular unit, that they won’t be sent to war, that signing a contract doesn’t really change anything — that it’s just a formality and a chance to earn money.”
Other rights advocates also describe the pressure to sign contracts as widespread and systematic. It begins at enlistment offices, continues on the journey to military units, and follows conscripts through nearly every stage of service. Commanders are working toward targets — and expected to meet them.
According to data from Shkola Prizyvnika, recruitment efforts have been especially aggressive in the cities of Chebarkul, in the Chelyabinsk region, and Ussuriysk. In most cases, sustained pressure and promises are enough to secure a signature. More overt forms of coercion — including physical force or forged signatures — appear to be far less common, but they do occur.