September 25, 2025

Three Years Gone


Three Years Gone
An 83rd Guards Air Assault Brigade artillery exercise.
Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, Wikimedia Commons.

More than 2,100 men from Russia’s Tomsk Oblast have been sent to fight in Ukraine since the Kremlin announced its “partial mobilization” in September 2022, as part of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Three years later, about one in four of these recruits is dead, missing, or wounded, according to a list of names compiled by the independent outlet Vazhnye Istorii.

“I don’t want to leave, shoot or see any reason to take other people’s lives,” 23-year-old children’s sports coach Nikolai Koksharov of Tomsk wrote on VKontakte in September 2022. He attached songs from the banned punk band Pornofilmy and from Lumen’s “Gosudarstvo” (“The State”), which carries the line, “I love my country and hate the state.”

Koksharov was typical of those drafted from the region: young and without seniority. The oldest mobilized man from Tomsk was 60 years old, the youngest 19. Although officials promised that only trained reservists would be taken, the draft in Tomsk turned out to be uneven. 

Former Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said 1.1% of eligible men nationwide would be called up. But Vazhnye Istorii found just 0.5% of reservists were mobilized from Tomsk city, compared with 0.8 percent in smaller towns and 2.1% in rural districts.

Education also played a role. Men with higher education were one-fourteenth as likely to be mobilized than those without it. Before the draft, more than a third of the men worked as drivers or manual laborers; nearly one in five had accounts in ride-hailing or delivery apps.

By Vazhnye Istorii's count, at least 522 men from Tomsk have been killed, wounded, or disappeared in Ukraine. No fewer than 11% have died. The first confirmed deaths occurred just 32 days after the mobilization began. Six men from Tomsk were killed on October 24, 2022, including 28-year-old woodworking plant employee Sergei Kandakov, whose wife said he received almost no training before being sent to the front.

“He called me quickly and said they had been issued rifles and were being taken somewhere. He sent me a photo with the gun,” his wife Yulia told Vazhnye Istorii. “I asked if they’d been taught anything. He said, ‘No, absolutely nothing. We’re going on some assignment, but I don’t know where.’ They just lined them up, called names and took them away.” According to one account, Kandakov died alongside others after a failed assault: “They understood they wouldn’t survive, but the commander ordered them to go to the end,” Yulia said.

The outlet estimated about 13% of the mobilized have been wounded. Eighteen of the 289 injured men later died. Hospital records showed nearly half were classified as lightly wounded and more than a third as moderately wounded, but a military medic told Radio Svoboda that hospitals often downplay injury severity so as to return soldiers to the front faster and reduce compensation.

As of early 2025, only 12% of Tomsk’s mobilized, 251 men, had been formally recognized as veterans, a classification that entitles them to state benefits. Fourteen of those veterans have since been killed in action. Under Russian law, veteran status is due to all mobilized personnel, whether or not they return home.

There is no fixed term of service for mobilized troops. Soldiers remain in the army until a presidential decree ends their service. And three years after the initial call-up, no such decree has been signed.

You Might Also Like

FSB's New Treason Trap
  • September 16, 2025

FSB's New Treason Trap

Russia has opened over 100 "light treason" cases in under two years, many born from FSB operations.
A Civic Duty?
  • September 14, 2025

A Civic Duty?

A local Russian leader opened a new kindergarten by calling on citizens to be fruitful and multiply.
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of our Books

Marooned in Moscow
May 01, 2011

Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.

Moscow and Muscovites
November 26, 2013

Moscow and Muscovites

Vladimir Gilyarovsky's classic portrait of the Russian capital is one of Russians’ most beloved books. Yet it has never before been translated into English. Until now! It is a spectactular verbal pastiche: conversation, from gutter gibberish to the drawing room; oratory, from illiterates to aristocrats; prose, from boilerplate to Tolstoy; poetry, from earthy humor to Pushkin. 

The Moscow Eccentric
December 01, 2016

The Moscow Eccentric

Advance reviewers are calling this new translation "a coup" and "a remarkable achievement." This rediscovered gem of a novel by one of Russia's finest writers explores some of the thorniest issues of the early twentieth century.

The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas
October 01, 2013

The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas

This exciting new trilogy by a Russian author – who has been compared to Orhan Pamuk and Umberto Eco – vividly recreates a lost world, yet its passions and characters are entirely relevant to the present day. Full of mystery, memorable characters, and non-stop adventure, The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas is a must read for lovers of historical fiction and international thrillers.

 
A Taste of Chekhov
December 24, 2022

A Taste of Chekhov

This compact volume is an introduction to the works of Chekhov the master storyteller, via nine stories spanning the last twenty years of his life.

Russian Rules
November 16, 2011

Russian Rules

From the shores of the White Sea to Moscow and the Northern Caucasus, Russian Rules is a high-speed thriller based on actual events, terrifying possibilities, and some really stupid decisions.

Jews in Service to the Tsar
October 09, 2011

Jews in Service to the Tsar

Benjamin Disraeli advised, “Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.” With Jews in Service to the Tsar, Lev Berdnikov offers us 28 biographies spanning five centuries of Russian Jewish history, and each portrait opens a new window onto the history of Eastern Europe’s Jews, illuminating dark corners and challenging widely-held conceptions about the role of Jews in Russian history.

A Taste of Russia
November 01, 2012

A Taste of Russia

The definitive modern cookbook on Russian cuisine has been totally updated and redesigned in a 30th Anniversary Edition. Layering superbly researched recipes with informative essays on the dishes' rich historical and cultural context, A Taste of Russia includes over 200 recipes on everything from borshch to blini, from Salmon Coulibiac to Beef Stew with Rum, from Marinated Mushrooms to Walnut-honey Filled Pies. A Taste of Russia shows off the best that Russian cooking has to offer. Full of great quotes from Russian literature about Russian food and designed in a convenient wide format that stays open during use.

About Us

Russian Life is the 31-year-old publication of an award-winning publishing house that also creates books, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955