Men Reportedly Rounded Up on Streets in Russia’s Penza Region for War Deployment

Russian security forces in the Penza region are reportedly detaining men in street sweeps and pressuring them to sign contracts with the Defense Ministry for deployment to the war in Ukraine.

According to Important Stories, police officers, Rosgvardia personnel, and military recruitment officials are carrying out large-scale raids in Penza and the nearby cities of Kamenka and Kuznetsk.

The first reports emerged from a video posted by a Penza resident on June 17. In the footage, women gathered near a bus carrying detained men outside a military enlistment office, attempting to prevent them from being taken away. They can be heard shouting that their relatives had been beaten and forced to sign military contracts.

Residents of the regional capital say that traffic police crews, accompanied by military enlistment officers and masked OMON military special police units of the National Guard of Russia, are stationed on city streets. Meanwhile, police officers patrol in unmarked civilian vehicles and conduct door-to-door visits in residential buildings.

Sources interviewed by the Idite Lesom (Get Lost) project say that men are being detained, placed in vehicles, and taken to sign contracts with the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation. Security forces are also reportedly stopping public transport vehicles and carrying out raids on board.

Witnesses say that some men are being taken from their private cars, while lone male pedestrians are forced into vans and transported to military enlistment offices, where they are allegedly beaten.

According to subscribers of the Mobilizatsiya channel, all men detained in Penza are being transported to the military enlistment office on Skladskaya Street. They say that even teenagers were caught up in the raids, although they were released once their age was confirmed. Local chat groups have also circulated claims that security forces were given a quota of 1,500 recruits for the war effort.

Residents further allege that similar recruitment sweeps took place in January and during the spring. They claim that security personnel from Russia’s Kirov region were brought into Penza during the winter to help carry out the operation.

Last month, the wife of a 25-year-old Penza resident said that her husband was summoned to the bailiff service office to collect a document. According to her account, officials confiscated his passport and military ID there and sent him to a military enlistment office, where he was allegedly beaten and forced to sign a contract. She said that 13 other men were being held with him, and that one of them was allegedly coerced into military service under torture: a bag was placed over his head and he was strangled.

About two weeks ago, another Penza resident reported that her 61-year-old husband, who has no teeth, suffers from hearing problems, and has a disabled arm, was summoned to the military enlistment office on Skladskaya Street. According to her, he was suffocated with a plastic bag and forced to sign a contract.

She said that her husband had previously fought in the war in 2022 and returned home after being wounded. Their son has also been mobilized.