A $58 Fine for Illegal Stay, a Detention Centre, and an Ultimatum - Sign a Military Contract or Leave Russia - Is How Moldovan Victor Tabyrtsya Ended Up Dead in Kharkiv.

On March 18, 2026, Victor Tabyrtsya, a Moldovan citizen born on January 11, 1980, received an illegal stay order issued by authorities in Dankov, Lipetsk Oblast. His family - a wife and a daughter born in 2007, both Russian citizens - lived in Lipetsk. He was fined 5,000 rubles (~$58 USD) and told he would be expelled from Russia.

He was then placed in a local migrant detention facility. There, he was offered a choice: deportation, or a contract with the Russian army.

He signed the contract on April 28, 2026. He was blind in one eye at the time of signing. He was sent immediately to a military training centre, deployed to Ukraine in the first half of May, and killed in Kharkiv Oblast in June.

See also: Moldova's Foreign Minister warns citizens after reports of forced military contract signings at Russia's border
 

A Mechanism the DIIS Report Documented

Tabyrtsya's case follows a pattern researchers from the Danish Institute for International Studies identified in their May 2026 report on Russia's foreign fighter recruitment. Interviewing foreign nationals captured by Ukrainian forces, the researchers found multiple accounts of migrants whose visa or registration irregularities were used as leverage to coerce them into signing military contracts.

One fighter in the report described being arrested over a registration problem and told that "if you see the judge again, you'll be hit with a long sentence" - and was then handed a contract. Another signed after being told that enlistment was the alternative to prison.

In Tabyrtsya's case, the coercive offer was made formally, inside a state-run detention facility, by officials with the legal authority to expel him from the country where his family lived.

81 Moldovans Confirmed Dead

According to data from Ukraine's I Want to Live project, Russia has illegally recruited at least 857 Moldovan citizens into its war against Ukraine. Of those, 81 have been confirmed killed. A further 8 are in captivity.

Tabyrtsya's case was documented and published by Defence Intelligence of Ukraine.

How to Save Your Life

Those Russia's armed forces servicemen who want to save their lives and escape Russian army can do so by reaching out the "I Want to Live" project - here is how.