"The unwilling were tasered or had their papers signed for them”: Russia’s fall conscription drive reaches new levels of brutality – (Dec 2024)

[…] Law enforcement officers break into young men’s homes, dress in plain clothes to ambush them near buildings, and handcuff them in subway stations and shopping malls. Newly drafted conscripts are even apprehended during trips to other cities and dragged into police cars in the streets. Conscripts and their families [say that] military enlistment officials, together with Russia’s National Guard (Rosgvardiya), tase prospective soldiers with electric shockers and threaten them with criminal charges in an effort to force them into uniform […]

This reality does little to increase the draft’s popularity. Instead, it has led enlistment offices to act more aggressively. Aside from the all too familiar tactic of “same-day transfers to the assembly point” — a practice that gained traction in the fall of 2022 — conscripts are subjected to beatings, handcuffing, detention at enlistment offices, and are coerced into signing contracts with Russia’s Ministry of Defense on the spot […]

As one Russian man tells in the article:

"They came around noon and started ringing the doorbell. My mother refused to open, but they broke the lock and came inside. They justified their intrusion by claiming the apartment was municipally owned and, therefore, they had the right to enter whenever they pleased. They tried to intimidate everyone. My mother stood in the hallway, yelling and trying to block their way, but they pushed her aside harshly, leaving bruises on her arm, and made their way inside [the home].

"My sister started recording everything on her phone. Three men came in. They identified themselves as Nikolai Igorevich Yakushev, a sergeant from the Khoroshevo-Mnevniki [District] police department, and Alexander Balashov, the senior district officer. With them was a plainclothes man — a bald guy who refused to identify himself. We later realized he was from the draft office.”