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“Loaded them up like convicts”. The wife of a Russian man seized in a massive Penza enlistment raid on how he was sent to war in Ukraine against his will
https://en.zona.media/article/2026/06/19/penza_raid
As police, bailiffs and soldiers seize men en masse on the streets of Penza, the Defense ministry is dismissing the roundups as a “fake” and denying that those detained are being forced to sign army contracts. Meanwhile, a video has gone viral showing women surrounding a minibus and begging soldiers not to take their relatives away to the front. Mediazona spoke to one of the women involved, who described how her husband, a man who had never served in the army, was grabbed in the street, beaten at the enlistment office and then, after being issued a new passport and a bank card, sent to occupied Mariupol.
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In the Sputnik neighbourhood of Penza, police carried out a door-to-door sweep. “They’re grabbing absolutely everyone, stopping cars and public transport, men are being bundled off to sign a contract, there are raids all over the city,” the anti-draft project Get Lost quoted one of its subscribers as saying …
The video that caused the biggest stir on social media was filmed during the night of June 16–17 outside the enlistment office for Penza’s Oktyabrsky and Zheleznodorozhny districts, on Skladskaya Street …
Weeping women have surrounded a minibus in which men sit in silence. One of the women shouts hysterically: “They won’t even give us five minutes [to say goodbye], why won’t you let us?” …
Halfway through the video the minibus tries to drive off, but it is surrounded, women clinging to it. “Sasha, call the police, please!” one of them shouts, her voice hoarse. “I swear, I’m going to smash this fucking window! Let them go!” …
“One man from Kamenka they grabbed right at home; his wife was at work and he was in with the child,” Tamara continues. “It all happened in front of the child. Another, from Kuznetsk, went to the passport office to register his address and was told to go to the council building to ‘get a stamp.’ He turned up, and they took him gently by the arm and carted him off [bringing him to the enlistment office].” …
Enlistment offices [in Russia] can indeed cancel a detained man’s passport and issue a new one within a day, often working hand in hand with the local migration units of the interior ministry, Ivan Chuvilyaev of the Get Lost project and an anonymous lawyer with the conscientious-objection project Call to Conscience told Mediazona. The servicemen’s salary cards are simpler still: usually issued without a name and, in Chuvilyaev’s words, already loaded with the lump-sum enlistment payments, “so help yourself.” …
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Interesting facts.
This means that they’re taking “recruits” to the front without training. Not sure what they’ll be doing there, is there some training at the location or are they working to dig ditches?
The other fact is the racism going on:
This was reported from early on: the regime is trying to send people of non-white-Russian ethnicity to die in the war.
In general, when war is declared, any potential soldier forfeits their life, sooner or later. That’s why we have to strive for peace and focus on class war.
Also means that if peace breaks out, ethnic nonwhites will be sent back home, with some experience handling weapons, a grudge against Russia, and possibly spme of their smuggled equipment.