Russian recruitment for men to fight in Ukraine is soaring in many of the country's regions, with signing bonuses and other incentives reaching new records in some places.
In Siberian regions like Irkutsk and Novosibirsk, local authorities have aggressively pushed contracts on potential volunteers, and signing bonuses in some places exceed average annual salaries, according to recruits and official advertising campaigns.
Sergei, who asked that his real name not be used and that his specific town in the Irkutsk region not be disclosed, said that, when he showed up at a recruiting office, he was immediately shown into a room and handed a brochure with "big, red figure" on the front: 1.4 million rubles ($16,700).
"It's supposedly what they’re paying you to go die. Or kill. Depends how it turns out, I guess," he told RFE/RL's Siberia Realities.
Russian officials have not released casualty figures since 2022, but Western estimates put the number of Russian soldiers killed or wounded since the start of the all-out invasion in February 2022 at more than 790,000.
The bulk of those casualties have occurred as a result of the battlefield tactics that Russian commanders have relied on: front infantry assaults, sometimes on foot, sometimes on motorcycles, that seek to overwhelm Ukrainian defenses.
Extraordinarily High Wages And Benefits
To replenish personnel, authorities have relied heavily on extraordinarily high wages and benefits to attract volunteers to fight in Ukraine. The signing bonuses typically are a mix of federal and local payments.
Authorities in Moscow have also pressured regional leaders to meet quotas for new volunteers.
In Iskitim, a town near the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, a woman who asked to be called Galina said she visited her local recruiting office on behalf of her nephew, who had previously been rejected for medical reasons.
She said the recruiter pushed her to bring him to the enlistment office -- not just pass along the brochures to him.
“I told her I’d think about it,” she said. “They’re taking everyone.”
'You Could Die In Your First Week'
She said officials are offering 1.2 million ruble signing bonuses ($14,300), but they're also highlighting a monthly salary for fighting in the war: starting at 210,000 rubles ($2,500).
"Then they keep adding numbers, trying to make it sound as good as it did in late 2024," she said. "Never mind that you could die in your first week."
Galina said there were two other men at the recruiting on the day she visited recently. One was seeking a "missing-in-action" certification for a relative, the other wanted a death certificate for his 24-year-old son, so he could claim death benefits, but he didn't have the proper proof.
"He told me, ‘Of course we’re sad about our boy. He didn’t give us any grandchildren'," Galina said. "'But now we can fix up the house and buy a new car.'"
"That’s how much a life is worth -- even to his own family. I don’t know, maybe he was just trying to justify what had happened. Maybe it’s the only way he could cope."
Some experts have pointed to the steady increase in signing bonuses, wages, and benefits as evidence that authorities are having difficulty attracting enough recruits to keep the war going.
In Yekaterinburg, a major Ural Mountain city, a woman who gave her name as Aleksandra visited a local recruiting office recently and saw a man who appeared to be close to 60 years old being referred for a medical exam.
"He said they told him it would be 'just a formality,'" she said.
Her own relative, whom she did not identify, had had heart problems and was even hospitalized in a psychiatric facility not long ago.
"They said it wasn’t a problem. And they reminded me about the bonus payments announced in mid-March," she said. “It felt like they had a green light to take absolutely anyone."
“I asked ‘Are people really signing up?’" she told RFE/RL. The recruiter replied: "'Yes. The signings have been good, especially since they increased the payout by 2 1/2 times'.”
