By Murad Rakhimov | 2025-07-28

In Russia, a criminal charge can be a one-way ticket to the front lines. Police across the country are receiving cash bonuses for persuading jailed suspects to sign up for the military instead of facing trial.

The move comes as Russia tries to replace its men who died marching into Ukrainian machine gun and drone fire.

The scheme disproportionately targets Central Asian migrants, turning minor offenses into a potential death sentence and raising concerns about coerced conscription behind closed doors.

Almost 12% of suspects in Russian detention centers signed contracts with the Ministry of Defense to avoid prosecution, the independent Russian outlet Verstka reported in July, citing data from June that it obtained from police sources.

Officers across multiple regions confirmed receiving bonuses from 10,000 to 100,000 RUB (about $125 to $1,260) for each recruited detainee, depending on location, Verstka reported. Leningrad province offers the highest payouts, while most provinces average about 35,000 RUB (about $440).

Illegal action

These bonuses effectively reward unlawful behavior, said Valentina Chupik, a US-based migrant rights activist.

Officers, under the law, may receive them only for performing official duties, not for offering detainees freedom in exchange for military contracts, she said.

"If police officers are paid for talking someone into service -- especially under pressure or threats -- this is essentially an incentive to overstep their authority," Chupik told Kontur.

The police leadership shares responsibility, said Chupik, calling such recruitment a collective abuse of authority and misuse of public funds.

While bonuses may appear legal on paper, she said, "the actual goals are only being articulated verbally."

Tashkent-based analyst Anvar Nazirov called the practice a blatant violation of the law but said legality in Russia has lost its meaning.

The Kremlin now justifies breaches of international norms and of its own constitution through the war, he said.

"[Russian President Vladimir] Putin operates according to the principle that the end justifies the means," he told Kontur.

The incentives lack any legal foundation and are likely masked by vague official documentation, said exiled Russian blogger and rights activist Alexander Kim. The full scope of these abuses will only emerge after the war and a regime change, he said.

Kim hopes fewer migrants will choose Russia for work, saying "refusing to migrate to Russia could become a key factor in changing the environment of radical nationalism."

Nevertheless, most inquiries he receives are from citizenship applicants trying to legalize their status.

"For now there's no reason to be optimistic," he said.

No right to say 'no'

Migrants from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and other Commonwealth of Independent States countries face more pressure from Russian law enforcement than do other foreign nationals, said Kim.

He described recruitment tactics that include threats of deportation, promises of legal status and coercion inside migration centers. New citizens and prisoners are especially vulnerable.

The practice amounts to coercion: the victims often feel confined in a hopeless situation, or they really are, said Kim.

Recruitment is often disguised as voluntary and occurs in locations like migration centers, which ban video recording. The lack of evidence makes going to court useless for migrants, said Kim.

"Forced mobilization of foreigners is characteristic of totalitarian regimes," he said. "The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany used these kinds of practices against residents of annexed territories."

In the numbers

At the start of 2025, Russia had 6.3 million foreign nationals, 89.2% of whom were in the country legally, according to the Interior Ministry (MVD). In 2024, more than 9.5 million foreigners entered Russia, while 9.3 million left.

Of those arriving, 38% came to work and 30% for personal reasons. The largest numbers were from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan. Officials also reported a rise in migrant workers from Kyrgyzstan.

In the first half of 2025, Russia issued 1.4 million work permits, up from 1.2 million during the same period in 2024. Most permits went to Tajik and Uzbek nationals.

Still, interest in labor migration to Russia may be declining. The number of Uzbek citizens working in Russia dropped from 1.2 million in early 2024 to 698,000 one year later, Uzbekistan's Agency for External Labor Migration said in January.

Migrant deaths in the war

Since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, at least 66 Uzbek and 72 Tajik nationals have died fighting for Russia, according to BBC's Russian service, the BBC reported in June.

Most were prisoners whom Russians recruited from correctional facilities with promises of freedom and citizenship. The Wagner Group mercenary force played a central role in early recruitment.

Many of the Central Asians served as cannon fodder in assault units, Хочу жить, a Ukrainian initiative that encourages Russian troops to surrender, said on Telegram in May.

In May 2024, Russian Investigative Committee chairman Alexander Bastrykin said authorities had identified 80,000 newly naturalized citizens who had not registered for military service.

"Already 20,000 'fledgling' Russian citizens who for some reason dislike living in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are on the front line," he said.

Migration as political leverage

Paying police and migration center staff to recruit migrants for war may fall into a legal gray area but clearly falls outside their official duties, said Alisher Ilkhamov, director of Central Asia Due Diligence in London.

"Such incentives spur officers to blackmail, psychological pressure and even torture in order to force migrants to sign a military contract. This is essentially a bribe that prompts a police officer to change his [or her] mission and violate the law," he told Kontur.

For migrants, the notion that "my police protect me" no longer applies, he said. Instead, police "not only aren't protecting but are a direct threat."

Russian authorities are using every method -- pressure, threats, bribery -- to fill manpower gaps at the front, said Nazirov.

"This isn't voluntary signup. It's blackmail," he said, calling the strategy typical of authoritarian regimes.

The public may be intimidated but is unwilling to die for the "special military operation" in Ukraine, so the state relies on those in the weakest social, legal or economic positions, Nazirov said. "Moscow is using migration dependence as a political tool of influence."

Domestic efforts alone will not solve the problem, he said.

Nazirov urged international pressure and action from Central Asian governments, including restricting migration to Russia, enforcing penalties for participating in the war and working with the European Union to create alternative employment paths.

But human rights work in Russia now faces severe constraints, said Kim the blogger.

"The options that are left are primarily conducting information campaigns and helping those who are evacuating Russia," he said.