War Ministry requests access to Russians' financial data
Desperate for more men, Russian military recruiters might launch an offensive against citizens with debts problems.
The Russian Ministry of Defence is proposing to expand the powers of its so-called Military-Political Directorate by granting it access to a wide range of financial data. Officially, this is to help combat corruption, but in reality, the mechanism could affect a much wider range of citizens, the Russian version of the Barents Observer reports.
If a draft bill is adopted, the Defence Ministry will get additional insight into peoples' credit history and financial situation.
The military will be allowed to send requests to credit organisations, tax authorities, public services provider Rosreestr, as well as various digital financial asset operators and securities registry holders.
Formally, such requests are permitted within the framework of inspections ‘for the purpose of combating corruption’.
However, the obtained data could allow the military to take targeted action against people in a difficult financial situation.
According to a registry of bankruptcy information, as many as 568,000 Russian citizens were declared insolvent in 2025, a 31,5 percent increase from the previous year, newspaper Kommersant reports. At the same time, creditors file for bankruptcy in only 2,1 percent of cases, which indicates an actual far higher number of people with debt problems.
The Barents Observer has previously reported that Russians with debt problems are already being targeted by the military. A resident of one of Russia's northern regions told the newspaper that he was confronted by military recruiters when visiting a local bailiffs' office. According to him, he narrowly escaped the military men by running out through the back door.
Russian military recruiters are also reported to pick up drunk men in villages, and even purposely get them drunk and then make them sign contracts.
In one case, a man was recruited for the war when he went to visit a friend in a neighbouring village. The friends went outside to smoke when the military drove up to them and offered alcohol. A few hours later, both friends were on their way to the assembly point in the capital of the region. The recruited man's wife, who called him that evening, claimed that her husband was very drunk.
A month after signing the contract, the man went missing on the battlefield in Ukraine.
