Nearly 5,500 residents of Russian-occupied Crimea were mobilized into the Russian army in 2024, according to the report of the Mission of the President of Ukraine in Crimea, published on Dec. 4.
Russian forces have experienced record personnel losses in 2024 amid ramped-up offensive operations in Ukraine's east. The Kremlin has avoided instituting likely unpopular full-scale mobilization, seeking instead to find recruits among volunteers, migrant workers, residents of poorer regions, and occupied territories in Ukraine.
Russia has been illegally mobilizing residents of Crimea since the peninsula's occupation in 2014 in violation of the norms and customs of international humanitarian law. A total of nearly 50,000 residents of occupied Crimea have been mobilized into the Russian army through illegal conscription campaigns since 2014, according to the report.
Russian-installed authorities have been persecuting and detaining residents of the occupied peninsula due to their political views, ethnicity, or religion.
Those who refuse to serve in the Russian Armed Forces also face punishment, including criminal charges.
According to the Mission of the President of Ukraine in Crimea, Russian prosecutors have started 553 criminal proceedings under the article "evasion of military service," 244 of which were initiated after Feb. 24, 2022, when the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began.
Crimean residents were found guilty in over 497 of these cases.
During the nearly 11 years of occupation, Russia has been in particular targeting the peninsula's indigenous Crimean Tatar population, which has been particularly vocal in resisting the occupation.
As of Nov. 26, 2024, 218 people are illegally detained in Russian prisons, including 132 Crimean Tatars. Most of them are activists, human rights defenders, and journalists who remain patriots of Ukraine, the report read.
Anastasiia Lapatina
(Updated: )
