Putin endorsed a plan to let Russians deemed ‘unfit for service’ join anti-drone units. What could go wrong?

On 5 September, Vladimir Putin voiced support for a proposal to let some Russians classified as Category D — “unfit for military service” — join anti-drone units on a volunteer basis. Experts fear the policy would be unlikely to stay limited to volunteers. With help from human rights advocates at the organisation Get Lost, Novaya Gazeta Europe explains who is classified as Category D, whether current law allows them to fight, and why this new initiative risks becoming a tool of pressure against them.

What happened?

On 5 September, Yevgeny Poddubny, a war correspondent for Russian state media, asked Vladimir Putin to allow volunteers with a Category D rating to serve in regional units tasked with defending against drone attacks. According to Poddubny, wounded servicemen with this classification had approached him with the request, believing themselves capable of handling tasks away from the front line.

“[They would be,] for instance, in regional units, in BARS [Combat Army Reserve of the Country] units defending the sky, destroying drones. Obviously not everyone. And obviously there's a core group of volunteers who, having weighed their own abilities, are asking, as an exception, to be allowed to serve in regional units that defend sites from drones. This clearly isn't about the front line — it's about their own city, their own village, their workplace,” Poddubny said.

Putin replied: “Zhenya, I support it.”

Who falls into Category D?

Fitness for military service in Russia is determined under a government document known as the Schedule of Diseases, which sets out five categories in total.

Category D is reserved for the most severe conditions — those considered wholly incompatible with military service. These can include consequences of injuries and fractures, serious damage to the brain or spinal cord, severe heart failure and other serious cardiac conditions, certain cancers, severe psychiatric disorders, and advanced cirrhosis, among other conditions.

A diagnosis alone, however, does not automatically result in a Category D rating: a military medical commission assesses its severity, stage, and the degree to which it limits a person's functioning. That is why the law contains no single, short list of Category D illnesses.

There’s no precise data on how many Russians currently hold Category D status, according to Darya Berg, head of relief and evacuation at Get Lost.

Can Category D holders legally fight already?

Only people rated Category A, B or C (“limited fitness) can be drafted for military or alternative civilian service, or accepted for contract service. Signing an ordinary military contract with a Category D rating is not currently possible.

But Category D does not indicate that a person is physically incapable of holding a weapon, walking, or working at all. Berg notes that the health of people in this category varies enormously: it is assigned not only after severe wounds, but also for psychiatric illness, serious heart problems, vision impairment, and other conditions.

“Some of them may be capable of certain tasks. Others physically can't carry a weapon or be in a combat environment. So you can't just take everyone with Category D and declare them fit for some new form of service,” Berg says.

Separate Defence Ministry health requirements apply to volunteer units such as BARS, which Poddubny referenced. But recruits still undergo a medical examination before signing a contract, and even people rated Category B — “fit with minor restrictions” — are sometimes turned away. Under the current rules, people with Category D conditions cannot be accepted at all.

“So Putin's verbal approval alone isn't enough. For the initiative to actually work, the state will have to change the existing rules,” Berg says.

What's the danger?

In Berg's view, the main danger is that it blurs the meaning of Category D, creating a risk that people officially declared entirely unfit for military service will first be persuaded, and then pressured, into taking part in the war.

“This category isn't assigned lightly. It means a person is entirely unfit for military service on health grounds,” she says.

For now, Berg notes, the initiative is being presented as an exception for a handful of volunteers who themselves want to take part in combat operations. But she fears the practice could later expand.

She is particularly wary of promises that Category D volunteers will be assigned only to air-defence, drone-defence, or rear-area roles.

“We get an enormous number of complaints from people who were promised one position and then, after signing the contract, were sent to the front and into assaults. People have been badly wounded and killed,” she says.

According to Berg, there is no way to guarantee that someone who signs a contract will remain in the promised role rather than ending up on the front line.

Will authorities proceed with the initiative?

The initiative is unlikely to remain just a statement, Berg believes, since Putin publicly endorsed Poddubny's proposal. As of 7 September, however, no directives, draft laws, or new rules on the matter had been published.

“My sense is that there probably will be a follow-up. And it wouldn't even require passing a major separate law — the Defence Ministry could simply change its own selection rules for volunteer units,” she explains.

Human rights advocates, Berg says, have already received reports of people rated “limited fitness” or “unfit for service” being pressured to sign contracts. In November 2024, reports emerged of round-ups of conscripts in Moscow, including people with conditions that could otherwise exempt them from service. Young men were detained at home, on the street, and in the metro, then taken to police stations; the diagnoses cited included asthma, hypertension, severe (grade III) flat feet, atopic dermatitis, angioedema, and psychiatric disorders.

Get Lost has also received reports of detentions involving people holding military ID cards, deferments, or disability status, as well as people with non-conscriptable conditions such as asthma and psychiatric illness. According to the outlet Cherta, Get Lost recorded 73 round-ups in November 2024 alone, and 125 between 1 October and 9 December of that year.

In May 2025, the outlet Ostorozhno, Novosti reported on a disabled Volgograd resident with a psychiatric condition who, his relatives said, was forced to sign a contract and sent to war despite his Category D rating.

Why now?

It’s impossible to say for certain what’s driving Putin's support for involving Category D citizens in anti-drone defence, Berg says. But in her view, the state has been steadily widening the pool of people it tries to draw into contract service.

“People are being picked up off the street and out of workplaces; conscripts and reservists are under pressure, and now contracts are being offered to people with serious illnesses. So the idea that this is about a manpower shortage and a search for additional resources looks plausible,” she says.

Ivan Chuviliaev, another Get Lost representative, agrees. In his view, Russian authorities are searching for yet another pool of people to recruit for the war. Contracts, he notes, were first pushed heavily on students; now it is the turn of people with health issues.

“The practice of overlooking fitness ratings when signing contracts already exists — people have been going to the front for four years now with every imaginable diagnosis, up to and including HIV, AIDS, and hepatitis,” Chuviliaev told Novaya Gazeta Europe.