More than 2,000 adverts offering security jobs at Wildberries and Ozon warehouses have appeared on Russia’s Avito platform, with applicants in fact being channelled towards military contracts.
The scheme, reported by independent Russian outlet Verstka and highlighted by NEXTA, presents the roles as work in so-called mobile fire groups protecting civilian infrastructure from drones. In practice, candidates are offered a one-year “special contract” with Russia’s defence ministry, a signing payment of 3.1m roubles and military training in Tula.
Warehouse jobs that lead to military contracts
The advertisements are framed as recruitment for guards at the warehouses of two of Russia’s largest online retailers. Applicants are told that their duties will involve defending civilian facilities from unmanned aircraft, suggesting a rear-area role rather than service on the battlefield.
But the recruitment process does not differ from ordinary enlistment for Russia’s so-called “special military operation”. Those who proceed are required to sign a direct contract with the defence ministry and attend a training centre in Tula. Once the contract has been signed, they come under the full authority of the Russian armed forces.
Recruitment specialists cited in the reporting say the warehouse-security language is a cover for meeting military enlistment targets. By presenting the vacancies as civilian employment, recruiters can avoid moderation rules on job-advertising websites and conceal the real conditions and location of service from potential applicants.
The approach also allows the Kremlin to expand recruitment without formally announcing another mobilisation campaign. Russian authorities fear that an openly declared mobilisation would increase public anger and could provoke protests. The use of civilian vacancies instead creates a hybrid system in which the labour market is turned into a mechanism for quietly drawing military-age men into the armed forces.
Financial incentives and pressure on applicants
The promised one-off payment of 3.1m roubles is a central part of the appeal. The scale of the offer points to a severe personnel shortage in the Russian armed forces, driven by huge losses among troops in the combat zone. The authorities are attempting to compensate for that shortage with unprecedented financial payments, particularly targeting people on low incomes for whom the sum may outweigh the danger of military service.
The assurances about rear-area work are not matched by the obligations created by the contract. The initial promise to protect civilian infrastructure does not restrict the defence ministry’s authority over those who enlist. After training, recruits can be sent to the front line, including assault units, regardless of what recruiters told them when they applied.
Reports also describe psychological pressure and manipulation. Recruiters have warned some candidates that anyone who approaches a military enlistment office independently would be sent to the combat zone. Such statements are used to push applicants into completing their paperwork through intermediaries, rather than dealing directly with the military authorities.
A wider system of hidden mobilisation
The warehouse adverts are not an isolated episode. Russia has previously disguised military recruitment as vacancies for humanitarian-aid drivers, “peacekeepers” and security guards at facilities in Belarus. The repeated use of civilian job descriptions shows how the authorities have adapted the recruitment system to new categories of work while keeping the military destination out of view.
The scale of the policy is also reflected in the planned size of the armed forces. From 1 August 2026, Russia approved a new establishment of 2,426,130 personnel, including 1,535,000 servicemen. The authorised strength of the defence ministry’s central apparatus was expanded to 13,400 positions, including 4,930 civilian posts.
Those figures expose the extent of the Kremlin’s longer-term plans to expand the state’s military capacity. Rather than relying only on a visible mobilisation order, the authorities are using employment platforms, large payments and misleading promises to draw civilians into a chain of recruitment that ultimately places them under military command.
The immediate issue is whether further civilian job categories will be absorbed into this system as Russia seeks to fill its authorised military establishment without the political cost of announcing a new mobilisation.
Should online recruitment platforms be required to remove civilian job adverts that conceal military enlistment?
