Russia has initiated its autumn conscription campaign, meaning 135,000 men will be inducted into military service by January, under presidential orders. In recent years, Russian lawmakers have substantially reduced the legal avenues for avoiding military duty, drafting legislation that establishes year-round conscription, an electronic summons system, and stricter regulations for military service. Men who evade conscription can face criminal charges and be sentenced to up to two years in prison. In practice, courts typically impose fines instead of jail time, and even suspended sentences remain rare. But it’s not just the draft dodgers who face prosecution under this statute: officials also target those who try to sidestep conscription by applying for alternative civilian service (AGS). Meduza interviewed three men who became suspects in draft evasion cases after applying for AGS.

The names of all persons who spoke to Meduza for this story have been changed for safety reasons.

‘I regret not doing it earlier’

Anatoly, 23, admits that he had a weak grasp of Russia’s conscription rules before his trouble with the authorities. After high school, he enrolled at a university to study biotech but decided after two years that it was a poor fit. When he withdrew in 2020, he lost his conscription deferment. For the next two and a half years, he heard nothing from the enlistment office. Then, Anatoly decided to continue his schooling as a first-year college student in another city, which required him to notify the conscription board. For three consecutive draft cycles, he says he filed applications to exercise his constitutional right to alternative civilian service (AGS), available to conscientious objectors.

In the fall of 2024, Anatoly says he started getting summonses to report to the military’s enlistment office for medical examination. “I ignored them,” he told Meduza, “since none of my AGS applications had been reviewed, and I’d received neither approval nor denial.”

Months later, in April 2025, a state investigator telephoned and told him to come to his office. “I didn’t contact any human rights organizations and just went in,” Anatoly recalled. At last, he thought, an agency was ready to help sort out his problems with the draft board and get his AGS application moving. It wasn’t until Anatoly was face-to-face with the investigator that he realized he was now a criminal suspect accused of evading military service.

“He wrote up the paperwork as if I were volunteering a confession,” said Anatoly. “After two interrogations, I turned to human rights activists. I deeply regret not doing it sooner, since a lot of my problems were covered, for example, in guides from OVD-Info and the Conscientious Objectors Movement.”

Anatoly told Meduza that he realized he was in an “information bubble,” trying to navigate the legal system alone without any friends or family who knew enough to help. “I had no idea that even if [the military] rejected my alternative service application, they were supposed to bring me in for a hearing to explain why they turned me down,” he said, adding that he’s ready to defend his pursuit of a higher education, too. “My university once told me, ‘Draft dodgers aren’t welcome here.’ But I’m fighting [through official academic channels] for my right to keep studying,” Anatoly explained.

Today, the 23-year-old says he spends his spare time listening to recorded legal lectures, studying Russia’s laws, and consulting an expert about conscription rules he doesn’t understand. Still, he told Meduza, “how the police and courts actually work remains a mystery to me.”

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As he waits for his case to go to trial, Anatoly ponders his likely future as a convicted criminal. With the matter still unsettled, he says he’s afraid to leave his home and has even taken lower-paying jobs just to be able to work remotely. He admits to having considered leaving the country altogether, but he says he wants to remain in Russia, despite everything:

I could leave Russia. Maybe it sounds funny, but I honestly love this country. It’s my country. I feel like all this stuff happening is just the price I pay to stay. Lots of people I know have moved away, and my family would support me if I did the same. But I want to get my Russian degree and build my life here.

Anatoly says he worries about the stigma of a criminal record, especially with future employers, but he takes heart in the fact that an evasion conviction would remain on his record for only a year. The conviction actually disqualifies men from conscription for 12 months. “My therapist said, ‘See, with that charge, you can’t get called up again for a whole year. In a way, it’s like you paid a fine to not stress about the army.’ That actually made it easier for me, and now I see it like that,” Anatoly told Meduza.

‘Someone’s gotta fight’

Kirill, 25, says his bad experiences with Russia’s draft board began when he was only 16, while first registering with the authorities. Recalling the rude doctors at the medical commission, and aware of his own dislike of “taking orders,” he decided to apply for alternative service when he came of age.

Over the years, the draft officers left him largely alone. There was one summons for “data verification,” which he answered by mail, and another order to report for medical examination. Kirill says the latter was illegal since his AGS application hadn’t been formally rejected.

By 2023, Kirill’s higher education in finance was nearly done, and he’d secured a good-paying job. He was also a new father, and he and his family had recently obtained a mortgage. In light of these new responsibilities, the minimum wage earned through alternative civilian service now posed a serious problem for Kirill. But greater difficulties awaited.

In early 2024, after informing draft officials that he’d accepted a promotion and relocated to a new city, Kirill got another summons. “I responded that it was illegal because my application for alternative service had still not been resolved,” he told Meduza. That June, an investigator contacted Kirill’s mother, asking about her son’s whereabouts. After texting with the investigator, Kirill found himself summoned for questioning the following Saturday.

That meeting fell through, but Kirill soon learned that he was being charged with felony draft evasion. “Find a lawyer,” the investigator told him after they eventually spoke. Kirill did exactly that, but his efforts to drop the case failed. “I guess what tripped us up was the whole ‘special military operation,’” Kirill told Meduza. “After that, they started coming after guys like me, since someone’s gotta do the fighting and serving. And the laws got a lot tougher, too.”

As the case went to trial, Kirill says he informed his employer’s internal security department about the proceedings. “It didn’t impact me at the office,” he told Meduza. In fact, he was even permitted to work remotely, allowing him to spend more time with his family. The trial itself was nerve-wracking, however. “Every time I had a hearing, I’d park by the courthouse and hand over my keys to a relative, just in case. You never know if you’re going home or away in a police van.”

After “four or five hearings,” the judge fined Kirill just 20,000 rubles ($245) — less even than the 150,000 rubles ($1,820) requested by the prosecutor. “He spent the whole trial on his phone, not caring one bit,” Kirill recalls. The Conscientious Objectors Movement helped pay the fine and Kirill’s legal fees.

Kirill says he plans to appeal the ruling to a higher court after his initial appeal was unsuccessful. He worries that future employers will learn about the conviction. Looking back, he still struggles to understand how he ended up in court at all:

This whole thing started because of one summons for a medical checkup. Even though I complained to the military prosecutors about it, they still found me guilty. I pointed out which rights they violated — it’s all in my file, and the court saw it too. Growing up, I always heard our courts were unfair. Was my trial any different? I really don’t know.

Further reading

• Russia’s seasonal military conscription drive is about to become year-round. Here’s what that could mean.

‘It’s a catch-22’

Semyon, 24, had the rare privilege — at least among the men who spoke to Meduza — of getting formally rejected for alternative civilian service. He learned about AGS when the draft board summoned him for a medical exam after he finished college. “Nobody at the draft office had mentioned it, of course. I reached out to Soldiers’ Mothers of Saint Petersburg for help with my application,” he told Meduza. On his paperwork, he emphasized his Christian pacifism. “My family approved of my decision. My dad even went with me once to the draft board.”

The draft office later invited Semyon to a review of his AGS request. “But they barely listened and kept interrupting me,” he told Meduza. “They tried to shame me for not wanting to serve in the army, asking questions like: ‘What if your family were attacked? What if you were attacked on the street — what would you do?’” Ultimately, the board said it wasn’t convinced of Semyon’s conscientious objections and denied his application on a procedural technicality, ruling that he’d missed the AGS filing deadline. The military’s deadlines for seeking alternative service, Semyon would soon learn, are impossible by design.

In later conscription cycles, Semyon applied again for AGS. His interactions with the draft board became openly hostile after he refused on one occasion to introduce himself according to official protocol. As a result, enlistment officers said they would communicate with him only in writing.

Ahead of the spring 2024 conscription cycle, Semyon says he decided to file another AGS application, afraid that he could no longer “hide” until aging out of the draft, since lawmakers had raised the maximum age to 30. However, when the draft board summoned him for another medical examination, the order arrived when he was on sick leave. When Semyon didn’t report for the exam, the draft officers involved the police.

Semyon eventually met again with the board to discuss his latest alternative service application, but he says the head recruiter called him into his office and stated bluntly that he’d never approve the request. At a subsequent hearing, as promised, the commission issued another rejection.

Throughout this process, Semyon learned that the deadlines regulating AGS applications effectively grant draft boards the ability to refuse any request on technical grounds:

If you want alternative service, they’ll turn you down if you apply less than six months before draft time. And if it’s six months or more, that only works if you’ve still got a deferment or you’re under 18 — otherwise, you’re up for the draft every round. But there’s only ever about four months between drafts, so it’s impossible to get your application in early enough. It’s a catch-22 that the draft boards use.

In December 2024, after another AGS rejection, a state inspector started investigating allegations that Semyon had evaded the draft board. However, officials decided not to press charges — an outcome Semyon attributes to his consultations with the group Soldiers’ Mothers of St. Petersburg and the many hours he spent in online chat rooms, researching how to navigate Russia’s conscription system.

“Now I kinda get how things work,” Semyon told Meduza, urging Russian men interested in applying for AGS to build a paper trail as early as possible. “You need to get ready first — not just with talk, but actual documents. Write some pacifist articles in a magazine or online. Volunteer somewhere. You need something solid, some document that backs up your beliefs.”

Despite the difficulties he’s faced exercising his constitutional right to alternative civilian service, Semyon says he still loves his country and plans to remain in Russia. “Sure, there’s stuff that annoys me, but there’s a lot that I love too,” he told Meduza. “I wouldn’t want to leave and lose all that.”

Interviews by Meduza

Adapted for Meduza in English by Kevin Rothrock