Russian President Putin recalls reservists for protection of vital installations

In the wake of massive Ukraine drone attacks on his Valdai residence on Sunday night, President Vladimir Putin has recalled reservists to protect critical installations across the nation.

"In 2026, citizens of the Russian Federation serving in the mobilisation reserve of the Russian Armed Forces will be sent to special training camps to ensure the protection of critical facilities and other vital infrastructure," a decree signed today by the president said, according to TASS.

In the decree, which came into effect immediately, the Russian government has been instructed to determine a list of critical facilities and other vital infrastructure to be protected.


The Ministry of Defence is to determine the list of military units responsible for conducting special training exercises.

Due to growing incidents of Ukrainian drone strikes on a key energy installation, including on the international Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), involving US and Kazakh companies for export of crude from Kazakhstan to the world market via Black Sea port of Novorossisk, in November, Putin had signed the law on the mobilisation of reservists to protect critical facilities.

The head of the Main Organisational and Mobilisation Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces previously explained that the initiative "does not involve any new mobilisation."

The General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces said that reservists will serve in the home regions to protect critical installations in their home regions and will retain their civilian jobs.

As Russia entered into the long spell of New Year holidays till January 12 the authorities have cautioned the general public that they may face an outage of mobile internet services as Ukrainian drones use GPS for guidance.