Putin Expands Conscription to Criminals: 'This Is a Sign of Desperation'
Russia loses 30,000 soldiers monthly, and new legislative changes and forced conscription reveal a deep manpower crisis at the front.
Russia loses 30,000 soldiers monthly, and new legislative changes and forced conscription reveal a deep manpower crisis at the front.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on Tuesday that significantly expands the pool of prisoners eligible to sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense and go to the front in Ukraine. This move, coming amid massive losses and increasing difficulty in replenishing ranks, is described by experts as a sign of Moscow's growing desperation.
The new law, which passed through the Russian parliament earlier this summer, allows for the conscription of citizens convicted of a range of serious crimes, including membership in criminal gangs and their attacks, drug trafficking, organizing illegal entry into the country, and theft of radioactive materials or documents containing state secrets, as reported by Finnish public broadcaster YLE, citing the Russian newspaper Kommersant.
During the debate on the law, deputies in the State Duma expressed concerns about a possible repeat of the so-called 'Wagner phenomenon.' The Wagner paramilitary group, which recruited nearly 50,000 prisoners at the start of the war, staged a rebellion in 2023 against Russia's military leadership under Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Deputies were particularly interested in whether individuals who had stolen state secrets could be trusted. Deputy Defense Minister Viktor Goremykin responded that "the ministry will not allow signing contracts with those convicted of losing 'especially important' documents."
According to an estimate by the American think tank CSIS from July 2026, Russia loses about 30,000 soldiers on the front each month, while in the same period it manages to recruit only about 27,000 new ones. This gap creates an increasingly deep manpower hole that Moscow is trying to patch in various ways.
Ukrainian intelligence estimates that Russia has recruited as many as 180,000 prisoners for combat in Ukraine since the start of the invasion. The head of the Russian prison service, Arkady Gostev, reported in May that the total number of prisoners in Russia has decreased by more than 180,000 over the past five years, partly due to recruitment for the war.
Although going to the front is officially voluntary, reports of forced conscription are increasingly common. According to The Wall Street Journal, lawyers, human rights activists, and eyewitnesses testify to a practice where men are grabbed on the street, outside workplaces, or under the pretext of routine document checks. Taken to conscription centers, they are subjected to threats and sometimes physical abuse until they agree to sign a contract.
The independent Russian media outlet Meduza reported on extensive raids in the city of Penza during the summer, where, according to a source of that outlet, "at least a hundred" men were forcibly conscripted. Other independent media, such as Nastoяshcheye Vremya, also reported on these events.
Prominent expert on Russian strategy Mark Galeotti described the new legislative measure directly in his podcast: "Frankly, this is a sign of desperation." Many analysts, including Jussi Lassila, a senior researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, believe that Putin is considering a new wave of mobilization, but it is not expected to happen before the Duma elections scheduled for September 2026.
The last partial mobilization was carried out in the fall of 2022. Despite extensive marketing campaigns and generous cash bonuses for signing contracts, interest in going to the front is waning, pushing the Kremlin to adopt increasingly drastic methods to fill its exhausted ranks.
