Migrant: on the register of controlled persons, facing expulsion or pressure to sign a military contract

• Since 5 February 2025 the Interior Ministry has been putting foreigners with no legal grounds to stay in Russia on a register of controlled persons. It happens automatically, and sometimes by mistake. While on the register you cannot move home or leave your region without permission, open or use bank accounts, drive, marry, or buy property or a car. You come off it by regularising your status, leaving Russia, or getting the decision that put you there overturned.
• If you were added by mistake, the Interior Ministry says to go to the migration department, to its PVS service or to the Sakharovo migration centre. Ask for a written reply and keep copies of all documents. Lawyers at Civic Assistance Committee can help you appeal. Don't trust paid offers to 'get you off the register': the only ways out are the lawful ones listed above.
• Expulsion. Since 5 February 2025 a police chief can order expulsion without a court, and a person can be held in a special facility for up to 48 hours. The deadline to appeal is short, reportedly 10 days, so contact a lawyer straight away. By law you may give explanations in your own language and use an interpreter (art. 24.2 of the Administrative Code). Don't sign papers you don't understand.
• Military contract. No one has the right to force you to sign a contract with the Defence Ministry. But according to Call to Conscience, since November 2025 many men aged 18 to 65 can only apply for a residence permit or citizenship on the most common grounds if they sign one. In practice the contract has no end date. If you are made to fill in a questionnaire about service, Call to Conscience advises ticking 'not ready' and writing nothing else, and if your documents are refused, asking for the refusal in writing. You may be prosecuted at home for taking part in the war, for example for mercenarism in Uzbekistan.
• Where to turn: Civic Assistance Committee (status, expulsion, appeals), Call to Conscience (recruitment and raids, with guides in Kyrgyz and Uzbek), First Department (guide to the register). For what to do during a raid, see the guide 'Migrants in Russia'.

current as of 26 September 2026. More: First Department: the register of controlled persons (foreign agent); ConsultantPlus: the expulsion regime from 5 February 2025 (in Russian); Interior Ministry: where to go if added to the register by mistake (in Russian); Klerk: expulsion of migrants without a court (in Russian); Administrative Code, art. 24.2: language and interpreter (ConsultantPlus, in Russian); Civic Assistance Committee: surveillance of foreigners in 2024 and 2025 (in Russian) (foreign agent); Call to Conscience: recruitment of migrants for contracts; Human Rights Watch: pressure on Central Asian migrants; Gazeta.uz: mercenarism sentence in Uzbekistan (in Russian)