The ministry noted Russia is launching the draft in temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories, including Crimea, and parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya, and Kherson oblasts.
It said Russia’s actions grossly violate Article 51 of the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, which forbids an occupying power from forcing civilians under its control to serve in its armed or auxiliary forces.
The ministry warned that Russia would use conscripted Ukrainians as “cannon fodder” if they were inducted into the Russian armed forces and urged residents of the occupied territories to resist the draft by all means possible.
It also called on Russian citizens to sabotage the draft order and, if mobilized, to contact the “I Want to Live” project and voluntarily surrender to Ukraine’s Defense Forces.
“We also address Ukrainians residing in historical Ukrainian lands — in Kuban, Starodubshchyna, Northern, and Eastern Slobozhanshchyna within the current Krasnodar Krai, Belgorod, Bryansk, Voronezh, Kursk, and Rostov regions of the Russian Federation: remember your roots and do not participate in the criminal war against the homeland of your ancestors,” the statement said.
“We also appeal to representatives of all indigenous peoples of the Russian Federation: this is not your war; this is Moscow's war, which throws you to conquer Ukrainian lands just as it once conquered your lands, and is killing you en masse so that others may live on your territories.”
On Sept. 29, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin signed a decree authorizing the 2025 autumn military draft. The campaign will run from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, and Moscow plans to call up 135,000 men not already in the reserves.
Russian propaganda outlet RBC said it was the largest autumn draft in nine years, surpassed only by the 152,000 conscripted in 2015. In the autumn draft of 2024, Russia conscripted 133,000 people.