Chechen authorities, according to sources cited by Novaya Gazeta Europe and the Memorial human rights center, have required district police chiefs to find between 25 and 50 residents each month who can be coerced into signing contracts with the Defense Ministry.
According to the newspaper’s sources, the mass campaign expanded after October 2024, when Ramzan Kadyrov proposed sending “problem youth” to war by forcing them to choose between criminal prosecution and a military contract. Oversight of recruitment, the report says, was assigned to State Duma deputy Adam Delimkhanov. The Telegram channel NIYCO reported that department heads and their supervisors are part of a closed WhatsApp chat where they discuss quota fulfillment, and detainees can be transferred between precincts. Chiefs who fail to meet the target are reportedly fined.
Detainees are first taken to police stations and then moved to two holding centers, in Sernovodskoye and Khankala. The first is believed to be located in the military camp of the 78th Defense Ministry regiment Sever-Akhmat. A captured serviceman told Ukrainian journalists that the regiment is about 90% made up of forcibly mobilized Chechen residents. A source told the newspaper that over three years the unit’s entire personnel was replaced at least three times because of losses. The second center operates in the military camp at Khankala, where the 270th motor rifle regiment Akhmat-Kavkaz is based; according to the report, at least half of its manpower over a little more than a year consisted of forcibly mobilized residents.
Accounts from mobilized men and their relatives describe conditions in both centers as close to prison-like: people are guarded, poorly fed, and given almost no training. There is also said to be a shortage of uniforms and equipment, with some men allegedly sent to the front in civilian clothes.
After shelling in April at the Sever-Akhmat training ground in Donetsk region, where relatives of one mobilized man said more than 40 people were killed and another 176 wounded, a new wave of raids began in the republic. Memorial’s sources confirmed heavy losses. Earlier, the newspaper counted 67 such operations in Chechnya between October 2024 and May 2025.
The report says grounds for detention may include a fight, car window tinting, lack of insurance, debts, “overly long hair,” a well-groomed beard, subscriptions to opposition Chechen bloggers, criticism of the authorities, or “political” likes. A source in the Chechen Investigative Committee said a former colleague was detained over such a like and that officers demanded two “volunteers” in exchange for his release. The man was ultimately freed for 1.2 million rubles, the source said; after a night in custody, he allegedly had broken ribs and marks from electric shocks on his fingers. Families usually pay 300,000 to 400,000 rubles to secure a detainee’s release, the source added.