“The healthy are already at the front; now the marginalized arrive”: Russia recruits alcoholics, indebted people and psychiatric patients to cover the casualties in Ukraine

This Tuesday, February 24, 2026, since the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, gave the order to his commanders to begin the military invasion of Ukraine.

Since then, Russian forces have suffered more than a million casualties (between dead, wounded and missing), which has forced the Kremlin to have to carry out a great effort for.

Specifically, a report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) published at the end of last January indicated that “Since February 2022, Russian forces have suffered almost 1.2 million casualtiesmore casualties than any other great power in any war since World War II.”

In that sense, from the German media point out that although Russia “continues to recruit more than 30,000 young people each month, Vladimir Putin’s regime seems to be forced to resort to increasingly questionable methods.”

As casualties increase, maintaining the number of recruited volunteers becomes more difficult, so the Russian military is being forced to be less selective to bring new fighters to the front. Among other profiles, Russian troops can now find alcoholics, indebted people and psychiatric patients.

For example, in August 2025, Russia decided reduce the list of diseases that disqualify for military service. This change has meant that patients from psychiatric hospitals can also be sent to Ukraine to fight.

“It is becoming more difficult to recruit and losses remain unchanged”

In this regard, Céline Marangéresearcher at the Strategic Research Institute of the Military Academy (belonging to the French Ministry of Defense), stated, in statements to the French newspaper which in Russia “from the summer of 2025, those in power are finding it increasingly difficult to recruitwhile losses remain practically unchanged.

For its part, a anonymous source from the Moscow recruiting office has assured the independent Russian news agency Verstka what “all healthy and physically capable peoplewith political or moral convictions, They are already at the front. Now all kinds of marginalized people arrive.”