In the Ivanovo region, unknown individuals are kidnapping local residents, forcing them to sign a contract and go to war. Since the fall of 2024, at least six locals have disappeared under strange circumstances, learned 'Verstka'*. Relatives of the missing reported that the men drank, survived on odd jobs, and were not in good health. Their loved ones believe that the kidnappers specifically targeted 'troubled' fellow villagers, and the lists were helped to be compiled by local authorities.
The men went for odd jobs and disappeared — or unknown individuals took them by force right from their homes. Some didn't even have their own phones — and a number to which banking services could be linked. At the same time, according to the relatives of the missing men, when signing a contract with the Ministry of Defense, accounts were somehow opened for the kidnapped in 'Promsvyazbank'.
As 'Verstka' found out, the missing village residents ended up in the same military unit in the Leningrad region. The phones from which some of the missing later called belong to employees of the military service selection point. Relatives believe that unknown individuals beat the men in an abandoned children's camp, forcing them to sign a contract for 'SVO'.
For instance, brothers Evgeny and Vladimir Dodonov disappeared in December 2024. 49-year-old Evgeny went to work as an expedition driver and did not return, 47-year-old Vladimir went to a meeting where he was supposed to be offered to guard cars. According to Evgeny's daughter Victoria Rozanova, on December 12, Vladimir called his mother and said that unknown people were 'taking him along some road', after which the connection was lost.
The day after Dodonov reported that he had been kidnapped, Rozanova, along with Vladimir and Evgeny's mother, went to the police and soon — to 'Liza Alert'. However, the police immediately advised contacting the military.
According to Sergey Krivenko, director of the human rights group 'Citizen. Army. Law', the scenario of kidnapping socially vulnerable men for contract recruitment is quite possible. He explains this by the need to attract soldiers to the front and the efforts the state spends on this.
Krivenko also noted that it is quite easy to formalize a military contract and create a bank account for payments — the main thing is that the candidate for service has a passport. In October last year, a case of fraud with payments to military personnel on the front was confirmed in the Vladimir region. The police detained employees of the selection point who appropriated the funds of the contractors. 'The employees processing the documents appropriated the SIM card, which was supposed to be issued to the citizen along with the bank salary card linked to its number', — reported the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Relatives of the missing men in the Ivanovo region do not have access to their bank accounts, where the contract money is deposited, and do not know for sure whether their military relatives have access to the payments.
* Recognized in Russia as a 'foreign agent'.