Russia is recruiting Serbian mercenaries for the war in Ukraine. The relevant documents are filled out on the outskirts of Moscow, while the fighters themselves join them as volunteers in the 106th airborne brigade, as the Russian service of the BBC writes in its report entitled: “Moscow hopes to recruit a brigade of Serbs for the war in Ukraine . It’s not going well so far.”

Afterwards, a special notary deals with their incorporation, while the contracts are signed in Karoliov.

According to the BBC Russian service, around 100 Serbian mercenaries have joined the Russian army.

On September 15, Vladimir Putin stated, writes the BBC Russian service, that Russia will not recruit foreign mercenaries for its army and does not need “people from outside”. However, soon after, a group of 30 mercenaries from Serbia arrived on the outskirts of Moscow, to sign contracts and join the 106th Airborne Brigade.

The French website Intelligence Online first wrote about this issue (“Moscow region hires Serbian private soldiers for imminent deployment to Ukraine”).

When the BBC located one of them, Serbs who have long been fighting on the side of the self-proclaimed Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk confirmed on the propaganda show “Soloviof. Live” that recruitment is taking place in Serbia.

On August 21, the show aired Serbian sniper Dejan Beric, who has been fighting in eastern Ukraine since 2014, and Davor Savicic, who since 2014 has been forming a platoon of Serbs under Wagner. Interestingly, when this information became known to journalists in 2016, Savichic, who until then lived in Khimki near Moscow, insisted that he was just a builder and that he had never been to eastern Ukraine or Syria.

The host of the show did not deny Serbia’s ties to the Russian military either. Introducing the guest, he said that Savicic has received four medals for bravery.

Beric stated on air that the 106th Airborne Brigade had formed a unit named “Wolf” under the command of Savicic.

Also, the sources of the Russian service of the BBC state that the recruitment plan was devised by a graduate of the FSB (Federal Security Service) academy and deputy prime minister of the government of the Moscow region, Roman Karatagev.

Subsequently, the founder of the Serbian platoon in the Wagner mercenary organization, Davor Savicic, the leader of the “Night Wolves” Aleksandar Zalbostanov and the son of the former president of Yugoslavia, Marko Milosevic, participated in this plan.

The latter has been living in Russia for more than 20 years and “had to guarantee his former compatriots that the Russian side will fulfill all agreements.”

The registration of foreigners through the Moscow region was proposed because the region failed to meet its targets for so-called secret conscription, writes the BBC, noting that at the beginning of the year, heads of regions and state-owned companies were tasked with recruiting 150,000 volunteers, so that by autumn 2023 they replace 50% of the conscripts who were recruited during the autumn 2022 conscription.

In one of the last meetings with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, it was said that the plan to recruit volunteers was only 70% fulfilled and the governors should implement it 100% by the end of this year.

At the same time, Russian officials claim that the volunteer recruitment rate is much higher.

For example, the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, said on September 3 that more than 230,000 people have signed a contract with the defense ministry since the beginning of the year. In July, Medvedev himself had spoken of 185,000 contract holders and claimed that “the rate at which they choose to sign contracts reached 1,400 people a day in June”.

President Vladimir Putin, speaking at the Far East Economic Forum on September 12, claimed that 270,000 people had voluntarily signed contracts in the past six or seven months. According to him, 1,000-1,500 people come to sign a contract every day. On October 3, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu spoke of 335,000 people who had signed contracts with the military in the previous year.