While speaking at St. Petersburg International Legal Forum, on June 27, 2024, the head of the russian Investigative Committee Aleksandr Bastrykin claimed that russian authorities had identified 30,000 migrants who had recently become russian citizens who were not registered for military service. Aleksandr Bastrykin further boasted that 10,000 of these had already been sent to the operational zone in Ukraine. Aleksandr Bastrykin claimed these migrants would “dig trenches” and conduct other duties in rear areas, according to the UK Defense Intelligence.
Russian media has previously reported that russian law enforcement have been conducting a campaign of legal harassment against, particularly Central Asian, migrants in an attempt to induce them to enlist in the Armed Forces of russia in return for citizenship or to avoid arrest on invented charges. This is likely yet another inventive means of bolstering military recruitment while attempting to limit the impact on those parts of the russian population that have greater political agency.
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