Sometimes positive news does come from Russia. People do not always treat someone else’s misfortune as none of their concern, and sometimes, when faced with almost inevitable death, they still unite in an attempt to pull their neighbors out of its grasp.

It all began with reports that at first quite literally smelled of something genocidal. In Penza and the Penza region, a practice began gaining momentum in which people — those found drunk in the street, those caught with administrative fines, those with debts or listed by bailiffs — were taken away and, through threats, blackmail, abuse and, according to available reports, torture, pressured into signing contracts to be sent to the war in Ukraine.

Because this was happening mainly within one region, the picture looked especially sinister. But in reality, the explanation appears to have been much more banal. Once again, it all comes down to money.

In the Penza region, an intermediary who helps arrange the signing of a military contract receives 100,000 rubles. And since in today’s Russia criminal structures and state agencies too often turn out to be, if not brothers, then at least brothers-in-arms, financial motivation could very quickly have turned into a workable scheme. State pressure combined with the activity of thuggish intermediaries, and at the end — their 30 pieces of silver, that is, 100,000 rubles for every new contract soldier.

This is how a fairly effective system for catching poorly protected citizens and sending them somewhere many of them will never return from was formed.

Concrete accounts show how this works.

Blogger Stanislav Morozov reported that after visits from bailiffs, people could be taken to military enlistment offices supposedly because of debts, while in the Sputnik microdistrict two young men, according to him, were taken away under the pretext of checking their phones and installed applications — and later found themselves at the front.

“There were cases here in Sputnik when a guy and his friend were taken away simply under the pretext that their mobile phones needed to be checked, including updates to some mobile applications… In the end, the guys ended up at the front.”

There are also accounts of raids directly on the streets of Penza. One local resident said that his older brother was detained during one such raid, after which he ended up in the war zone and has been listed as missing since April 2026.

“Well, they caught him on the street. Yes, we had raids here in Penza.”

The man himself now tries not to leave home unless necessary:

“I’m sitting here myself and hardly go anywhere.”

He also spoke of a large number of deaths among residents of his area: “A lot of people have been buried. A very large number.”

So this is no longer about one method of pressure, but an entire system: debts, bailiffs, inspections, street raids — different pretexts, but the same result.

And here a natural question arises: where is the good news in all of this?

At first glance, there is none.

But there is.

Against the background of these relentless roundups, citizens themselves began to organize. According to former Novosibirsk City Council deputy Sergey Boyko, residents of the settlement of Bashmakovo in the Penza region created a volunteer squad to protect local residents from mobilization.

According to Boyko, around 200 villagers have already joined it.

“They formed a squad, and around 200 villagers have already joined. The task of the squad is to defend locals from visiting mobilization teams.”

In retellings, the story sounds even more direct:

“Residents of the Penza-region settlement of Bashmakovo formed a squad to protect men from mobilization. They catch and beat up the mobilizers and rescue the men.”

The reason for such a reaction is not difficult to understand. According to Boyko, it was prompted by numerous cases in which local residents were sent to war and subsequently killed.

He cites one woman’s account:

“They took my brother to the military enlistment office on March 3, and by the 27th he had already been killed.”

In some cases, less than a month passed between a person being taken away and his death.

But we do not want to get ahead of ourselves. We know all too well how almost any human-rights initiative can end in today’s Russia.

The recent story of the mass destruction of livestock in the Novosibirsk region already demonstrated this. The scale was enormous: according to Takie Dela, around 90,000 animals were destroyed. At the Sibirsky Kolos farm alone, 2,000 cows and 1,000 sheep were killed; at the Vodoley farm, around 600 cows and 220 sheep; Svetlana Panina lost around 200 animals. Many farmers effectively lost their main source of income, while the compensation offered was insufficient to restore their farms.

Some people tried to help them.

Olga Archibasova supported the farmers during the spring and summer of 2026 and helped the Agrarian Council publicize what was happening. She was detained on August 4 and, on August 6, placed in pre-trial detention on charges of public calls for terrorism.

Larisa Mikhailova helped affected farmers draft appeals, accompanied them to meetings with officials, and filmed what was happening. After the publication of a widely discussed video of Svetlana Panina’s meeting with the Minister of Agriculture, a previously closed inquiry against Mikhailova was reopened. On August 13, following a search involving the FSB and OMON riot police, she was detained and also placed in pre-trial detention in a case involving alleged public calls for terrorism.

And this is where the scale of the problem becomes particularly clear: these people were not defending a political party, organizing a revolution, or calling for regime change. They were helping farmers whose tens of thousands of animals had been destroyed and whose source of livelihood was effectively being wiped out.

And where are these activists now?

In pre-trial detention.

That is why we do not want to get ahead of ourselves, and why we understand all too well how even the most local attempts at self-organization and protection of one’s neighbors can end in today’s Russia.

All that remains is to hope that the Penza initiative succeeds and that the experiment now effectively being tested in the Penza region is not later extended to the entire country.

Local human-rights defenders also note another alarming trend. According to Boyko, women have begun to be actively recruited to sign military contracts.

“They’ve started recruiting women for contracts, very actively, actually across the country.”

But this too is logical.

Once the killing machine has been built and set in motion, it no longer matters to it whom it grinds up: men, women, debtors, people who have been drinking, or those lured away under a completely unrelated pretext.

It exists for its own reproduction.

It has no moral qualities. It has only one task — to keep turning, to pull in more and more people, and to generate money for those who have embedded themselves in its mechanism.

And at some point, war ceases even to be a means of achieving any declared objective.

It becomes a system that exists in order to continue existing, killing, and feeding those who profit from its uninterrupted operation.

Source: Telegram channel “Don’t Expect Good News”:
https://t.me/ne_zhdi_novosti/6888
https://t.me/ne_zhdi_novosti/7181
https://t.me/ne_zhdi_novosti/7109