Comment by Arnt 20 hours ago
Do you happen to know whether there's any conscription in Moscow and/or St. Petersburg?
I mean, the Russians round up people from the periphery and send them off to help liberate Ukraine from the Ukrainians, but do you happen to know whether people from the core cities of the empire are conscripted?
I'm not missing anything. I call a spade a spade. There have been many reports of people who didn't sign voluntarily, which is conscription even if the wording above the signature avoids the word. And as for the good pay, there've been many reports of people who weren't paid.
You conveniently forget the part where conscripts are coerced into signing up for the professional contract, or the signatures are falsified altogether without them even knowing.
Semyon* (name changed) was conscripted in Chelyabinsk, in the Urals, having served in the Pskov region of northwestern Russia for the first five months, where he was asked to sign a contract several times but refused. On 20 April, he was transferred to the Chebarkul garrison and signed up for professional service after just two and a half hours.
His mother says that on the way to the unit he complained of being actively pressured into signing a contract, after which Semyon was taken to a separate office, where a sergeant fired a gun next to him and showed him a video of dead and wounded people, threatening that the same thing would happen to him if he didn’t sign. Semyon broke under the pressure, his family says. On the same day, he applied to have the contract annulled, saying he had signed under duress, asking for it to be declared invalid as the commander had not yet signed it, but to no avail.
https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/05/14/unwilling-signat...
Russian police are targeting migrants and draft-age men in a wave of raids on gyms and martial arts clubs across major cities, with activists describing them as part of a broader crackdown that intensified ahead of the country’s spring military draft. /-/ Similar raids have since been reported at other Spirit Fitness locations, as well as gyms in the cities of St. Petersburg, Irkutsk, Yekaterinburg and Krasnodar, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s regional desk Sever Realii. /-/ Lawyers in multiple regions told Sever Realii that gym raids now happen at least twice a month in major cities. Russian citizens are typically sent to enlistment offices, while foreign nationals are taken to temporary detention centers. Many are ultimately deported.
Man, stop reading and posting this propaganda bullshit. RFERL is a shithole on a USAID payroll.
Migrants can't even be conscripted as they're not Russia citizens. So, police raids against migrants are targeting illegal migration, have nothing to do with military service.
>Radio Free Europe is a really solid outlet that has maintained a balanced and consistent coverage of Russia for many years
Lmao. I guess you're their employee?
>this seems to piss off Russian
Yes, that's the only thing they're good at. Pissing off Russian citizens as the level of lies they keep producing for years is just unbelievable.
> Pissing off Russian citizens as the level of lies they keep producing for years is just unbelievable.
Radio Free Europe has maintained a strong focus on social issues, and that seems to piss off trolls the most. Stories about ordinary people and the social issues they face in everyday life are much more powerful than generic articles about politics. This story about gold mining destroying rivers is a good example: https://www.rferl.org/a/krasnoyarsk-siberia-polluted-rivers-...
You're missing/mixing the concepts.
Conscripts army exists in Russia for decades, it's a mandatory service unless you are not fit due to some illness or due to higher education exceptions. Russia conscripts from every region proportionally to a population about 160k people every half a year (1 year mandatory service). These people do not participate in Ukrainian war directly unless they're part of the border guard and Ukraine tries to breach it.
And there's a professional army, with contracts. That's who is fighting in Ukraine. Conscripts after their mandatory service is finished may sign or not sign a professional contract. MoD hires soldiers in every region, pays good salaries, but this salary is very lucrative for periphery regions, but not as attractive compared to some jobs in cities like Moscow or St.Petersburg. Yet, they increased bonuses for two capitals compared to other cities. So, overall, most soldiers are not from Msk or SPb, but every region has enough volunteers so far to not mobilize.