- Russian military commanders are ‘forcing’ men mobilised in 2022 to sign contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defence, according to independent Russian media outlet Verstka.
- Whilst contracts given to Russian soldiers are said to have formal end dates, they can reportedly run indefinitely, with those who refuse to sign threatened with being sent into ‘meat grinder’ assaults with survival rates as low as 10-15 per cent.
- Russian efforts to coerce mobilised soldiers to sign indefinite contracts are highly likely motivated in part by a lack of experienced soldiers, with Russia having sustained approximately 860,000 killed and wounded since invading Ukraine in 2022. This has severely depleted the number of Russian personnel with more than rudimentary levels of training.
- Russia’s leadership also almost certainly perceives such measures as reducing the potential requirement for further domestically unpopular mobilisations. After Putin’s announcement of the partial mobilisation in 2022, hundreds of thousands of young and educated Russians chose to leave the country rather than participate in the illegal Russian invasion. This has substantially contributed to long-term difficulties for Russia’s labour market.
Latest Defence intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 21 February 2025.
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) February 21, 2025
Find out more about Defence Intelligence's use of language: https://t.co/9OmQJHyhY5 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/odvUupAIJW
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