Russian Regions Offer Huge Bonuses to Recruit Fighters for Ukraine War

Across Russia this year, regional governments have dramatically increased the cash incentives offered to men who sign contracts to join the armed forces — a brisk, visible attempt to turn money into manpower for Moscow’s long, attritional campaign in Ukraine. From Siberia to the Volga, local officials have authorized municipal and regional top-ups that, when combined with federal payments, in some places now amount to millions of rubles up front. The measures are intended to refill depleted ranks, yet analysts, independent media and recruitment data suggest that piling money on top of a grinding battlefield draft is a blunt — and costly — tool with limited long-term payoff.

The pattern is straightforward: after a wave of smaller, localized increases in early 2025, a new round of raises began in mid-year and accelerated into autumn. Local budget documents and reporting tracked by researchers show some regions lifting their municipal supplements sharply — for example, documents and local reporting cited by monitoring groups indicate that Saratov region boosted its regional payment to as much as 2.2 million rubles and, when combined with federal and municipal contributions, the total “sign-on” package in some cases reaches roughly 3 million rubles (about $37,000 at recent exchange rates). Similar jumps have been recorded in multiple oblasts, including in parts of Western and Siberian Russia, and municipal leaders have publicly framed the increases as necessary to meet Kremlin recruitment targets.

The Kremlin has for months signalled the need for fresh manpower. On Sept. 29, 2025, the government published an autumn conscription decree calling for the enlistment of 135,000 citizens for compulsory service from October through December — a formal step that underlines Moscow’s continuing demand for personnel even as it pursues contract recruitment drives. Regional top-ups are partly an effort to make voluntary contract service more palatable than forcible call-ups, and to steer recruits into contract-status roles that are politically preferable for Moscow.

The use of cash as a recruitment lever is not new. In mid-2024 President Vladimir Putin doubled a federal one-time signing payment, and Moscow recommended that regions match or exceed the federal bonus; wealthier localities — notably Moscow city and parts of European Russia — instituted outsized payments to secure volunteers. Those measures helped avert a nationwide mass mobilization in 2024, but they also created sharp regional disparities in how much a new contract soldier could pocket up front. The most recent escalation in regional supplements continues that pattern: local authorities are increasingly using budgetary transfers to compensate for lagging volunteer numbers.

Yet the cash push has a contradictory record. Recruitment data compiled by independent reporters and analysts point to a sustained slowdown in new contract signings earlier this year: public reporting cited federal budget figures showing that only about 37,900 people received sign-on bonuses in the second quarter of 2025, down sharply from the comparable period in 2024. Those figures suggest that, despite higher headline payments, the pool of willing volunteers remains inadequate when measured against Moscow’s manpower needs — prompting regions to keep increasing offers in search of marginal recruits.

Political economy helps explain the gap between offer and take-up. Analysts tracking regional budgets say many local governments have already stretched spending to deliver recruitment bonuses and are now under pressure to find more funds or reallocate priorities. One researcher noted that in the first half of 2025, in many regions sign-on payments accounted for a non-trivial slice of local social spending; in some cases, cash incentives have risen to levels that would be difficult to sustain over a multi-year horizon without broader fiscal tradeoffs. Observers warn that adding temporary inducements may work for short spikes of enlistment but risks creating an escalating “wage spiral” that strains municipal services and distorts local labour markets.

The Kremlin’s calculus is simple but fraught: money buys bodies faster than persuasion. Yet several distinct limits mean cash cannot be a long-term fix. First, the human cost of fighting in Ukraine — including casualties, poor training and reports from the front of chaotic equipment and leadership failures — erodes the pool of volunteers regardless of the price. Second, many would-be recruits who are willing to sign up for a windfall are not the elite or well-trained troops the military most needs; paying desperate men does not immediately create experienced infantry, armored crews or signals operators. Third, the incentive structure invites “gaming” — middlemen, recruiters and municipal bureaucracies can absorb parts of the payment chain, while some recruits may sign contracts and then quickly exit if the reality of service differs from promises. Independent Russian reporting and research groups have documented such frictions repeatedly since 2024.

The social and political implications are visible. In regions where payments have surged, municipalities report higher short-term inflows of recruits but also complaints from residents about money diverted from health, education or housing to fund bonuses. In others, observers say recruiters are increasingly targeting economically vulnerable populations and even non-Russian citizens in occupied territories — a practice that has drawn condemnation from Kyiv and human-rights groups. Economists warn that the substitution of cash for civic support may deepen social inequality in provincial Russia while leaving core public services underfunded.

Moscow’s critics — inside Russia’s independent media and among Western analysts — argue that the pattern exposes a deeper strategic problem: a force generation model that relies on incentives rather than sustainable institutional capacity. U.S. and European intelligence analysts, along with think-tank researchers, note that high sign-on bonuses have been paired with other expedients — including accelerated recruitment campaigns, relaxed contract lengths and promises of housing or loan relief — but that those measures do not substitute for consistent training, logistics and officer corps reform. In short, cash can populate units, but it cannot by itself fix the operational weaknesses that show up on the battlefield.

For Moscow, the trade-off may be politically driven as much as militarily. Big bonuses are a rapid, visible way to claim “success” in meeting personnel targets without formal mobilization, which carries domestic political risks. But the fiscal and reputational cost is accumulating. Analysts point out that if bonuses keep rising, they will compete with other budget priorities and potentially fuel inflationary pressures in local labour markets — a dynamic the Russian central bank and regional finance ministries will have to monitor as autumn budgets are finalized.

What comes next is uncertain. The autumn conscription window formalizes a baseline of new draftees, while regional bonus drives continue to hunt for volunteers who will sign contract terms. If recruitment shortfalls persist, Moscow faces difficult choices: deepen financial inducements and accept domestic fiscal strain; formalize a wider conscription that risks public blowback; or change military doctrine to reduce manpower demands. Each option carries strategic and political risks — and none offers a quick fix to the complex, grinding realities of a war now in its fourth calendar year.

— Reporting by Nick Ravenshade. Sources: Institute for the Study of War (force-generation reports); TASS (federal conscription decree); Meduza (recruitment data and analysis); Reuters (background on prior bonus doubling); Janis Kluge and regional budget research; The Moscow Times; independent monitoring groups tracking regional bonus announcements.