The 22nd wave of forced mobilization started in Crimea

The terrorist country continues to forcibly mobilize residents of the occupied Crimea in violation of international law. In October 2025, the 22nd conscription campaign was launched there, during which the occupiers plan to replenish the army with new illegally conscripted Crimeans.

This was reported by the press service of the Mission of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

After the occupation of Crimea, Russia has built a full-fledged system of forced recruitment of the peninsula's residents into its armed forces. Between 2015 and 2025, Russia conducted 21 conscription campaigns, during which it illegally sent at least 53,000 people to the Russian army. The 22nd campaign started in October 2025 and will last until the end of the year. The mission noted that such actions violate the IV Geneva Convention, which explicitly prohibits the occupying power from conscripting residents of the occupied territory.

The share of Crimeans among the total number of conscripts in Russia has been steadily increasing: from 0.32% in 2015 to almost 2% after 2020. In 2023, the Kremlin began to digitize military records by creating a Unified Register of Persons Liable for Military Service and a system of electronic summonses. In May 2025, it was launched in Crimea, allowing the occupation administration to issue summonses remotely. A rule was also introduced that allows the decision to enforce conscription within a year, and in 2026, it is planned to move to year-round recruitment.

According to human rights activists, since 2015, 626 criminal cases of service evasion have been registered in the occupied Crimea, half of them after February 24, 2022. Occupation courts have handed down 511 sentences, most of them fines or suspended sentences. More than 30% of the convicts are Crimean Tatars, which indicates the selective and political nature of the persecution.

It is known that some of the illegally mobilized Crimeans were sent to the front. Conscripts from Crimea were among those who died after the sinking of the cruiser Moskva in 2022. In 2024, at least seven Crimean soldiers were captured in the Kursk region.

Young men are trying to avoid official employment, change their place of residence, and hide from conscription. The terrorist country, using occupation courts, medical commissions and digital registers, has actually created a system of forced military service on the peninsula - with all the signs of a war crime.

In addition, a scheme of forced mobilization involving forging contracts with the armed forces of the aggressor country was discovered in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. The criminals collect personal data, in particular via the Internet, posing as employers who allegedly offer jobs and require a passport scan for verification, but in fact this data is used by the military structures of the Russian Federation to forge contracts.

Анна Бальчінос