Children abducted and held for months until their fathers agree to fight Russia’s war against Ukraine

There really are no limits to the methods of intimidation, threats and open terror that Russia is applying, both at home and in occupied Ukraine to force men into taking part in its war of aggression against Ukraine.  Three 16-year-old boys were freed last week after being illegally held hostage in a Chechen police station since late December 2024.   While possible that the publicity which the Memorial Centre gave to this abduction contributed to the release of Said Idigov; Elbrus Saidayev and Mansur Shabazov, the lads were only freed after their fathers, all of whom are over 50,  agreed to ‘sign contracts’ with the Russian army, which they would certainly have known meant being sent immediately to fight in Ukraine.

Memorial notes that Chechen enforcement bodies are increasingly using methods of violence to force men into signing contacts with Russia’s defence ministry.  “People are beaten and tortured, with virtually all told that they will return from the war within three to six months.” They are deceived with such contracts proving to be indefinite.  Men are forced to return to military zones even after sustaining injuries.

While you may need the specific lawlessness under Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s Chechen protégé Ramzan Kadyrov to abduct men’s 16-year-old sons, hold them prisoner, without any charges, and deprived of any contact with their families, there are constantly reports of Russian conscripts and others being forced to sign such contracts. 

In occupied Donbas, such coercion, or worse, began around the time of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and it has not improved since. 

On 16 July 2025, the Ukrainian partisan movement ATESH reported that people in occupied Luhansk were facing “widescale but covert forced mobilization aimed at using local residences to replenish military losses at the front”. The occupation ‘authorities’ were particularly concentrating on educational institutions in occupied Luhansk, including the occupation ‘state university’, ‘teacher training university’ and ‘police academy’.  According to preliminary information, ATESH says, men in military gear turn up at these institutions each day.   They use the threat of arrests or other pressure to force students to sign contracts, or they simply take them away and send them to the collection points, without training or the minimal conditions.   The occupiers hides such forced mobilization through intimidation, disinformation and lack of access to information. ATESH reports that parents are told that their kids are at “military training’ or are “undergoing practice”, when they are, in fact, already on the front line – within bullet-proof clothing and without medical care. 

ATESH can obviously not reveal their sources of information, and Russia has itself blocked independent media and observers.  The methods of coercion described, however, have been seen in occupied parts of Donbas since February 2022, with men seized at their workplace, off the street or in their homes.  It was known then that Ukrainians from occupied Donbas were being sent, effectively as cannon fodder, as they received no training, nor proper gear.  It seemed clear then that Russia preferred using people from occupied territory, since no records were kept, and there was no need to provide compensation to bereaved families, etc.

Russia is now targeting very young people, and those who would not be liable for conscription because they are in full-time study.   

ATESH’s information corresponds to that received by the Yellow Ribbon resistance movement which warned, in May 2025, that it was becoming dangerous in occupied Donbas for men under the age of 50 to seek medical treatment in clinics or hospitals. 

Yellow Ribbon had learned that medical personnel in such institutions had been instructed to add all men from 18 to 50 to a separate register and to pass this to the occupation military recruitment office  (more details here).