Putin Expands Forced Recruitment to Women as Drone Strikes Hit Tatarstan Oil Hub
(MOWCOW) – With manpower in short supply, Russia is increasingly turning to women, including convicts and migrants, some still teenagers, to fill the ranks of its army, according to multiple reports.
Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty says the Russian prison service is putting female convicts under intense pressure, including through starvation, to sign military contracts. In some cases, they are being sent to frontline combat roles.
Hundreds of women, both Russian citizens and foreigners, are believed to have signed up. The Uzbek human rights organisation Esgulik reports receiving letters from relatives of dozens of Uzbek women who say they are being abused and mistreated to force them into military service.
According to the mother of one detainee, her daughter and others were deprived of food for ten days to break their resistance and compel them to agree. Some girls, fearing deployment, attempted suicide.
An 18 year old Kyrgyz woman detained on drug smuggling charges said she was beaten, tortured with a stun gun and threatened with a 15 year prison sentence unless she agreed to go to Ukraine.
Relatives say they have received little help from their governments, which are reluctant to strain relations with Moscow. Families of Uzbek women claim authorities in Uzbekistan responded to appeals for assistance by briefly detaining them and forcing them to sign documents pledging not to speak publicly.
Women forcibly recruited may also face prosecution for mercenarism at home if they return.
Esgulik states that many of the Uzbek detainees had worked as couriers or in low paid jobs. It says most were jailed after drugs were planted on them.
Since 2022 there have been reports of women recruited for roles as cooks, mechanics, nurses and medics. Some have been sent into combat. At least two Ukrainian units have published drone footage showing female Russian soldiers injured in strikes.
On 31 July 2025, the 24th Separate Mechanised Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine released drone footage of an attack on Russian troops in the town of Chasiv Yar in Donetsk region. At least three Russian women were identified among the assault group.
The brigade said that due to heavy losses, Russian commanders were sending women, likely recruited from prison colonies, into frontline assaults.
On 3 August, the Spartan Brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine posted video of a drone strike on what it said was a Russian service member. The footage showed a wounded woman lying on the ground. The brigade stated that Russia had begun deploying women in assaults in the Pokrovsk sector and added that its drones target any enemy forces on Ukrainian soil.
Even outside combat roles, women in the Russian army face serious risks. Some female soldiers have complained of pressure to become so called field wives of officers.
The director of Tong Jahoni, a migrant support organisation, recalled advising a female convict from Kazakhstan against signing a contract. She said she warned the woman she would not be recruited only as a cook and would have no protection within a brigade of hundreds of men.
Separately, on the night of 23 February, attack drones struck the Kalinino oil pumping station near Almetyevsk in the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia. The facility, owned by Transneft, is a key supply hub for oil flows that later feed into the Druzhba pipeline system.
Russian authorities confirmed a strike, stating that air defence systems had neutralised a UAV over the Almetyevsk district and that falling debris caused a fire at the site.
The Kalinino station is located more than 1,000 kilometres from Ukraine’s border. It receives oil from western Siberia, Tatarstan, Udmurtia and Bashkortostan and redistributes it to refineries, including facilities in Nizhnekamsk and Samara, as well as to export routes linked to the Druzhba pipeline.
Under normal operations, the station handles around 350,000 tonnes of oil per day, equivalent to about 4.2 million tonnes per year. Disruption at the site may require operators to redistribute flows across the network.
Previously, drones operated by the Security Service of Ukraine struck the Tamanneftegaz oil terminal in Krasnodar region.
Inside Russia, following broad restrictions on social media and messaging platforms, users are being directed towards a state backed application known as Max. Some users allege the app enables extensive surveillance.
In a widely shared video, one user said that despite not using a secondary phone for a week, the Max application had accessed the camera, microphone, contacts, photos and videos within the previous 24 hours. “This is actually very scary,” the user said.
The claims could not be independently verified.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian units report continuing rescue operations on the front line. One soldier was said to have carried out six rescues in six days.
