Irina (name changed for security reasons - ed.) has been looking for a job for several months and came across an ad from a publishing house affiliated with a Russian state structure. “Everything was strange from the very beginning: they did not indicate the address of the office, but instead gave directions - you get out of the metro, turn left, then go right, cross the road and there is a door there. Later, they sent me a photo of the door in question and asked me to turn off my phone before going inside,” she says.
When she arrived at the site, she was told that she had to go through a security check and was given a questionnaire and a contract. “The documents said that it was a contract military service. Did they really think that they could attract a person who is a text editor by profession and that he would not bother to read what he was signing?”, Irina is indignant. Later, she informed the recruiter that the salary was insufficient and – just in case – blocked him.
"The salary was suspiciously low – 55,000 rubles, but I assumed that since it was a state structure, there would probably be additional allowances and bonuses," the woman explains. According to her, if she had signed the contract, she could have been transferred to another position “anywhere“ – especially since the position indicated in the documents was simply “specialist“.
How cooks and press attachés end up in assault units
On job search sites such as HeadHunter, Superjob and Avito there are numerous advertisements – for example, for construction workers, general workers and operators of specialized equipment – offering work on a rotational basis in different regions of Russia, with a monthly salary of between 150,000 and 200,000 rubles. Although these offers may seem like ordinary civilian work, they are also the most dubious.
"When you see an offer for a high-paying job that is not in the IT sector, and the other party is ready to hire you quickly, this is a common trick for recruiting personnel for the war. Then the “red light“ should come on for you that something is wrong. But this does not happen to everyone“, says Artyom Kliga from the legal department of the “Movement of Conscientious Objectors (from military service)“ in an interview with DW. According to his observations, people respond to these ads, and recruiters begin to “process” them, making them go to a certain place or undergo a medical examination at a military commissariat - supposedly as part of the hiring process. “Some go, but once they arrive, they are not allowed to leave; in the end, they sign documents for a military contract – or the contract itself.“
Previously, such cases were rare – for example, someone could apply for a job as a cook, arrive at the specified military unit and then find themselves sent on an assault operation, explains to DW Ivan Chuvilyaev from the anti-war organization “Catch the Forest”.
"Anyone can fall into this trap"
According to his observations, military service contracts are now offered under the guise of ordinary civilian work – not directly with the Russian Ministry of Defense, but through intermediary companies, which subsequently “resell“ the person to be sent to war. "Anyone can fall into this trap," Chuvilyaev says, citing a TV journalist who signed a contract for a press service position but ended up in an assault unit.
Meanwhile, the amount offered to recruits to sign a military contract in Russia is decreasing, while the remuneration of recruiters is increasing. An investigation by the publication "Important Stories" found that in 2026, Russian regions spent an average of about 802 million rubles a month on these intermediaries - a significant increase from the 358 million rubles spent a year earlier.
Russian paratroopers preparing for the front Photo: Stringer/AA/picture alliance
According to Chuvilyaev, these "people hunters" They approach women differently because they are not recruited for assault units. “Because of this, women think that there is no risk of death with them and that they will somehow get out of the situation“. He advises job seekers to pay close attention to every detail in the job description and if anything looks suspicious, to give up and in no case go for an interview.
Military contracts scare people who are looking for jobs
And many people do, says Anna (her name has been changed for security reasons - ed.), who works in the "human resources" department of a Russian construction company. In an interview with DW, she said that many war-related offers appear on job sites and computer applications: "The descriptions are so similar to those for ordinary jobs that people can easily mistake them for something else."
For example, when Anna is looking for construction workers on a rotational basis for specific projects, many people think they are being recruited for the army and say that if they wanted to join the "special military operation", they would have signed up themselves. "It is difficult to convince them that this is just construction work on a rotational basis and that we have no intention of sending them to the front. "We provide candidates with the employment contract in advance to make sure that it is a civilian job," explains Anna.
Candidates are rightly distrustful, Chuvilyaev believes. Once the contract is signed, the only way out is to go to court or start a fight, which is a real burden for the person's relatives.
Such job offers most often attract people in a vulnerable position - those who have mental health problems and addictions, or have accumulated debts, but also the unemployed who are looking for a way to earn money quickly and easily. Private recruiters are happy to take advantage of this desire, explains Kliga.
"We had a case with an orphan from Karelia who was told that he would work in the shipping sector. He went to the military district, but they did not allow him to leave - eventually signed all the documents, and soon after that there was no more contact with him", he says.
How to protect yourself after you have signed a contract?
If you are presented with a contract that you do not want to sign, you have every right to break it, the lawyer advises. If you are prevented from leaving the building, immediately send a message or call relatives, friends or human rights activists. In such a situation, it is still possible to provide assistance to the candidate - as long as he himself does not consent to what is happening.
If you have signed a contract, you must immediately file an application for its cancellation, and your relatives should take legal action to challenge it. “Between signing the contract and sending it to the front, there is one more stage: issuing an order to approve this contract. Before issuing the order in question, the entire process can be “reversed“. This is especially true if the assembly point deems a person to be "problematic" - for example, if there is a dispute procedure underway or if a court case has been filed in a timely manner. They usually want to avoid unnecessary noise or complications; they prefer to deal with people who do not cause problems," Kliga explains.
According to him, if a person has already ended up in a military center or has been sent to a combat zone, the chances of him returning unharmed are negligible: "You can't just desert at any moment; for that, specific, favorable circumstances are needed - and those may never arise," Kliga adds.
Source: www.dw.com