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Online advertisements to entice troops to fight for Vladimir Putin's forces in Ukraine have been offering salaries several times Russia's national average, according to a Kyiv-based NGO.
Data analyzed by the Foundation of Ukrainian War Victims, a Kyiv group that profiles the Kremlin's hidden mobilization efforts, showed how significant amounts of money have been on offer for recruits, and there is no shortage of willing takers.
Faced by huge troop losses in his invasion, Putin announced a partial mobilization on September 21. The Kremlin said that the drive to enlist 300,000 had been completed but analysts have suggested that a draft is ongoing covertly for fear of the backlash a widespread mobilization might cause.
Yuriy Mukhin, a board member of the NGO told Newsweek that over the last few months there has been a push by Moscow to boost troop numbers.
"They are trying to use any possible means to recruit people and they are activating their efforts," he said.
The average salary in Russia varies from region to region but in February was around 63,000 roubles ($827) nationally.
"After the full-scale invasion, a salary of 300,000 roubles ($3,941) is the average for vacancies related directly with the war," said Mukhin.
Some posts offered up to 450,000 roubles ($5,900) as a one-time payment, plus a monthly salary of 400,000 roubles ($5,100). Other vacancies offered as much as 500,000 roubles ($6,500) a month. Help was also offered for applicants in solving credit and debt obligations, which typically doesn't happen for those in ordinary jobs.
The sample size is small compared with the size of the Russian army but Mukhin said that his NGO's research offers a snapshot of how the Russian state is trying to attract recruits.
Between the end of August 2022 and the middle of March 2023, the NGO tracked 5,874 unique vacancies posted on the job website HeadHunter.ru by verified Russian state accounts of military units recruiting troops. Newsweek has contacted Head Hunter and the Russian defense ministry for comment.
The NGO found that that on August 26 there were around 2,400 vacancies, a number that declined to around 1,600 by the time of Putin's draft announcement. This was followed by a sharp drop off to around 900 vacancies on December 8, 2022.
But since then, the number of jobs has gradually grown as has the money on offer, and the interest from applicants. Mukhin said that there were seven applications per vacancy in January, which had almost doubled to an average of 13 applications per job by March.
"Most of them (the advertisements) don't have the wording connected to the war but some of them are openly advertising that you would have the status of a military participant," Mukhin told Newsweek.
He said that contacting recruiters for jobs that had a monthly salary of more than 200,000 roubles ($2,600), "you will definitely hear that you will go to the SVO," referring to initials for what Moscow calls its "special military operation."
More than three-quarters (76 percent) of the vacancies were for Russia's armed forces, under a fifth for the National Guard (Rosgvardiya), and 4 percent are for the FSB, Russia's main intelligence agency.
Military personnel were recruited to replenish military units stationed in different Russian regions, as well as for immediate deployment to the war, according to the NGO.
One example was unit 3474 of the National Guard, from the Sverdlovsk region, which recruited personnel to be sent to the Ukrainian city of Enerhodar and the nearby Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
The largest number of responses to the job ads were received from Chelyabinsk, Selyatino (Moscow Region), Kaluga and Moscow. The most active response to military vacancies is on the island of Sakhalin and in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, in Russia's far east.
Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine started on February 24, 2022, but job advertisements with high salaries were already appearing online from January 10, 2022, Mukhin said.
Putin has not formally ended the mobilization he announced in September and in April the Russian authorities made it easier to draft men into the army by allowing electronic conscription notices. Previously, paper summons had to be issued in person. Digital notices are considered valid when they appear on the government portal Goslugi.
On Wednesday, Dmitry Rogozin, the former head of Russia's space agency Roscosmos, called for Putin to declare a general mobilization because of troop shortages in Ukraine. In April, Mikhail Sheremet, a lawmaker in Russia's lower-house State Duma said Russia cannot win in Ukraine without such a draft.
About the writer
Brendan Cole is a Newsweek Senior News Reporter based in London, UK. His focus is Russia and Ukraine, in particular ... Read more