 Tajik migrants were beaten by Russian police for refusing to fight in Ukraine. Some Tajik migrants working in Russia say they were beaten by police and deported on fabricated criminal charges for refusing to fight in Ukraine according to Radio Liberty. The allegations come as Russian officials continue to target migrants, migrant workers from Central Asia in an effort to shore up Moscow's depleted troops in Ukraine according to migrants and rights activists. Mansur Hodyev, a 30-year-old Dushanbi resident, was deported from Russia in October just weeks after declining to sign a contract to join the Russian army, the former migrant worker says. Hodyev told his problems began when he approached migration officials in September to complete paperwork to obtain Russian citizenship. During my appointment at the Migration Office in the Svedlovsk district in Perm province, on September 12th, officials told me that I need to sign a contract to go to war in Ukraine or my citizenship application would be rejected, Hodyev said. The holder of a valid residency permit, Hodyev said he didn't sign the contract and decided to continue living and working in Russia without trying to get citizenship. But two weeks later, Hodyev was summoned to the Migration Office where officials allegedly demanded that he sign a statement admitting to taking illegal drugs. Four masked men handcuffed me there, put a plastic bag over my head and pushed me into a van like a cow. He claimed they drove me to some forest attaching wires to my arms and legs and giving me electric shocks. Hodyev told Radio Liberty that under duress, he signed a fabricated confession that he was caught by police while taking narcotics. Rights defenders and migrants in Russia have reported dozens of similar cases of Central Asian workers being pressured into signing contracts with the Russian Defense Ministry amid Moscow's efforts to bolster its troops in Ukraine.