Russia plans to spend almost $1 billion on military contract payments between 2025 and 2027, which indicates a continued reliance upon crypto-mobilization to provide war manpower in Ukraine.
According to a report released by the Institute for the Study of War on 5 October, Russia plans to allocate 90 trillion rubles ($948 millions) for one-time payment to individuals who sign military contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense between 2025 and 2030. The think tank claims that this move shows the Kremlin’s intention to continue to rely on ongoing cryptomobilization efforts in order to meet the manpower needs of its war against Ukraine for the near future.
In addition to the payments offered by the regional governments, the Russian federal government offers 400,000 rubles as a one-time payment for signing a contract with armed forces. Recently, some regional payments exceeded one million rubles. According to the current rates, the Kremlin hopes to recruit 225,000 new personnel via contract service between 2025-2027.
The ISW points out that these rates are not likely to remain static as they have been steadily increasing since 2022. The increase in financial incentives over the past few months indicates that current recruitment efforts were not sufficient to maintain the consistent generation and new forces required by Russia to sustain its offensive tempo in Ukraine.
Russian authorities are reportedly concerned that their ongoing recruitment efforts are not producing the desired results.
ISW estimates that there are “medium to long-term limitations on how many recruits can be generated by the ongoing Russian cryptomobilization campaign, and increased financial incentive is unlikely to significantly alleviate these constraints.”
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, is committed to the ongoing cryptomobilization campaign in order to avoid announcing another unpopular partial mobilization of reservists. He retains the option of calling another round, similar to what he did in 2022.
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