Officers from military enlistment offices and the Russian National Guard are conducting mass roundups of men in Penza, according to the Telegram channel Govorit NeMoskva (“Not Moscow Speaking”) and the project Get Lost, which cited their subscribers.

“There were traffic cops, people in balaclavas, and officers from the local draft office. They were checking military registration status and looking for draft dodgers. The questions were mainly for those who had received a summons at some point but never showed up at the local draft office. Whether they were detained or not, I don’t know. I personally didn’t see any detentions,” one reader of Govorit NeMoskva said.

A second source who spoke to the channel said panic is spreading through the city, with residents warning one another about the roundups.

All anyone is talking about in the city is the roundups. Local media are silent. Everyone is calling each other, warning people not to let their men go outside. A cashier at a shopping center was shouting at some guy who works there, right in front of me, telling him to stay inside and not go out to smoke, because they’re waiting out there [from the local draft office]. I don’t know how true all of this is. But the panic has started.

A Penza resident told Get Lost that in the city “everyone is getting rounded up, cars are being stopped, public transit too.” Detained men, she said, “are being taken away to sign contracts.”

Social media posts and Telegram channels placed the roundups across multiple districts of Penza and in several district centers — Kaminka and Kuznetsk.

A video circulated on social media showing women trying to pull men away from local draft office officers in the aftermath of a roundup. The independent Russian news outlet Mediazona reported that the footage was filmed outside the local draft office building for the Oktyabrsky and Zheleznodorozhny districts of Penza, and that the video was posted on VKontakte on June 17. “They won’t even give five minutes [to say goodbye] — why won’t you give us that?” one woman shouts. The person filming addresses the men inside a minibus: “Guys, tell us — did everyone sign the contract voluntarily?” Another woman shouts: “They forced you, didn’t they?” At one point the minibus tries to drive away but is surrounded by women.

On the morning of June 18, the press service of the Russian National Guard for the Penza region reported that it had conducted a “joint interagency sweep to identify citizens who had not registered for military service.” The agency stated that it had set up checkpoints on “key transit routes through the city,” where drivers’ documents were “thoroughly checked” along with the validity of their military registration booklets or service cards. Of the 80 drivers checked, nine — all Russian citizens — had not registered for military service. They were, according to the agency, issued official summonses.

The Penza-based news outlet Stolitsa 58 reported that the Penza region government is denying reports of mass roundups of men. A government source cited by the outlet nonetheless referred to sources “close to the security services.” “Reports of large-scale checks in the city are not being confirmed. All units are operating normally. Residents are advised to remain calm and rely on official communications,” the source told the outlet.