Russia continues to actively recruit for the war in Ukraine, with bonuses from regional governments increasing, and recruitment centers accepting men of any age and health condition. At the same time, talks of a peace agreement give new contractors hope that they will receive benefits but not end up on the front line.
Janis Kluge, an employee of the German Institute for International Security Affairs, based on data from the Ministry of Finance and regional budgets, calculated that by the end of March, expenses for one-time payments for those signing contracts with the Ministry of Defense reached approximately 2 billion rubles per day. 1.5 billion rubles are paid from regional budgets, and 0.5 billion rubles come from the federal budget.
According to Kluge's calculations, the recruitment campaign currently brings 1000-1500 new soldiers to the troops daily. The influx of contractors has almost doubled and fully covers front-line losses, which NATO intelligence estimates at about 1000 people per day.
Earlier, "Verstka"*, having studied data from the closed statistics of the Unified Selection Point in Moscow, wrote that in the capital, the number of those wishing to sign a contract with the Ministry of Defense sharply increased at the end of March-beginning of April, with about a thousand people deciding to go to war from April 1 to 10 alone. This figure is twice as high as the indicators for the same period in January, February, and March—when the recruitment rate of new contractors barely reached 500 people. In total, since the beginning of the year, Moscow has sent more than 6.4 thousand people to war.
Recruitment expenses compared to April 2024 have soared almost fivefold, and if the current pace continues, by the end of the year, contractors will cost the Russian treasury 730 billion rubles, Kluge estimates.
As noted by The Moscow Times**, this is half of the annual budget of the entire higher education system in the country (1.5 trillion rubles per year) and twice the annual expenses for the national project "Healthcare," which this year amount to 369 billion rubles.
* Recognized as a "foreign agent" in Russia.
** Recognized as a "foreign agent" and "undesirable" organization in Russia.
Photo: Alexander Nevenov/ AFP