Russia has eased medical rules so that people with serious mental disorders can sign contracts with the armed forces and be returned to combat units from psychiatric hospitals, according to Verstka on November 27.
The outlet said amendments adopted in August 2025 to the government’s Regulation on Military Medical Expertise downgraded a range of psychiatric diagnoses from full unfitness for service to limited fitness, with the changes taking effect from September.
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Under the revised schedule of diseases, “endogenous psychoses” such as schizophrenia, schizoaffective and other psychotic disorders, as well as severe neurotic and personality disorders, no longer automatically exclude a person from contract service, while chronic alcoholism and alcohol-induced psychoses were moved from the “unfit” category to “fit with minor restrictions.”
Verstka, citing medical papers and interviews with soldiers and relatives, described multiple cases in which servicemen who developed serious mental disorders at the front were returned to assault or reconnaissance units after short stays in psychiatric hospitals, despite earlier conclusions that their conditions made them unfit for frontline duty.
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One case describes a contract soldier from Kazan diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder and a “pronounced personality disorder,” and who had attempted suicide several times, was taken from a psychiatric hospital by military police, re-examined by a military psychiatrist and then sent to an assault detachment, his wife told the outlet.
Other families recounted similar situations in which soldiers initially deemed “limited fit” and barred from weapons were later assigned to storm brigades.
The investigation finds the revised rules also cover people with a history of drug use and addiction. According to Verstka, past drug dependence and related diagnoses that once meant automatic exclusion can now be reclassified so that such individuals are deemed fit for restricted contract service.
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A military psychiatrist interviewed by the outlet, who works with servicemen and requested anonymity, said the overall bar for fitness had been lowered because “the fit resource is running out” and that people who would not have been admitted before, including those with psychotic episodes, alcoholism or drug addiction, are now being sent to war.
Earlier, it was reported that Russian ex-prisoner Andrei Galkin, who said he had a cognitive disability and was registered with a narcologist, was coerced into signing a military contract and sent to a storm unit in Ukraine.
He and fellow soldiers suffered such extreme deprivation that they drank urine, contemplated cannibalism and ultimately surrendered to Ukrainian forces.
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