The draft appeared on Russia’s official portal for normative acts and was flagged by the investigative outlet Agentstvo. Current rules already require the agency to plan ahead for protecting its own personnel, civilian staff, workers at affiliated entities, family members and property. The amendments add protection “from dangers arising during mobilization, under martial law, and in wartime,” and widen the range of civil defense tasks the agency takes on.

An explanatory note attached to the draft says the changes are needed to align the agency’s internal rules with national civil defense legislation updated in 2025. That law redefined civil defense as a system for protecting the population during mobilization, martial law and wartime, replacing older wording built around emergency situations and military action.

Casualty estimates near 1.4 million

The paperwork lands against a grim backdrop. Western intelligence and defense assessments put Russian casualties in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine at roughly 1.4 million killed and wounded by mid-year.

Recruitment has struggled to keep pace with those losses. In February, the US-based Institute for the Study of War warned that contract recruitment was falling short of front-line attrition.

Rumors of an autumn call-up

Over the summer, pro-war Russian social media channels circulated claims that an October mobilization could target up to 1.2 million people. Human rights advocates report that more Russian men are being handed mobilization notices when they visit military enlistment offices for routine record updates.

The Kremlin had earlier issued strict regional directives to boost contract recruitment. Local authorities that missed their quotas responded by ramping up the activity of enlistment offices and security services.

Two groups bore the brunt of that push. People with significant debts listed in enforcement databases and former prisoners under administrative supervision were detained on a large scale and pressured into signing contracts with the Russian armed forces.

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