Russian Soldiers Could Earn Nearly as Much as Putin in Ukraine War

Russian soldiers could earn nearly as much as President Vladimir Putin for signing up to fight in Ukraine, with Moscow reportedly suffering a manpower shortage in the war.

Recruits from Russia's Moscow region will receive 5.2 million rubles (about $60,000) for the first year of service, and a one off payment of 1.9 million rubles (about $22,000) for signing up, bringing the annual total for joining Russia's military to 7.1 million rubles, according to an advert aired on state TV last week.

An advert luring Muscovites to fight in the war in Ukraine was broadcast on a state TV show hosted by Vladimir Solovyov, one of the most prominent figures in Kremlin-backed media and an ally of the Russian president.

An excerpt was shared on X, formerly Twitter, by user Dmitri from War Translated, an independent project that translates materials about the war.

"I understand that there has been a lot of talk lately about exponentially increasing payouts to Russians for signing a death contract," he wrote on Saturday. "But this morning on Solovyov's they seem to have another record. Recruits from the Moscow region will receive as much as 5,200,000 rubles for the first year of service. That's close to £50,000. With a 1,900,000 rub one-off payment for signing as part of that."

Newsweek reached out to Russia's Defense Ministry via email for comment.

In contrast, Putin's income in 2021 reached around 10.2 million rubles, according to publicly available data. At the end of 2022, Putin signed a decree permitting senior officials not to declare their income during the war in Ukraine. Figures for Putin's income for 2022 and 2023 are not available.

The recruitment drive comes amid reports of high numbers of military fatalities for both Moscow and Kyiv in the war.

While it isn't possible to independently verify the true scale of Russia's battlefield losses, and official statistics don't reflect a surge in deaths caused by the ongoing war, analysis of publicly available data suggests death tolls far higher than what is being relayed to the public.

On June 27, independent outlet Important Stories used data from the Federal State Statistics Service of Russia (Rosstat) to estimate that at least 71,000 Russian troops had died since the war began.

Independent Russian news outlets Mediazona and Meduza also published a joint investigation on troop deaths on July 5, using data from the country's National Probate Registry. The outlets found that by the end of June, approximately 120,000 Russian troops had died since the conflict began, "but the real number could be as high as 140,000."

The British Ministry of Defence said on May 31 that Moscow had likely suffered more than 500,000 military dead and wounded since early 2022.

Newsweek couldn't independently verify the figures.

Putin announced a "partial mobilization" of the population in the fall of 2022. Former Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that Russia would target 300,000 reservists and ex-military personnel with "certain military specialties and relevant experience."

The Russian president has since pushed back against pressure to take a more aggressive approach and introduce a full-scale mobilization in the country to bolster its manpower.

Konstantin Sonin, a Russian-born political economist from the University of Chicago, previously told Newsweek that Putin is likely deterred from announcing an open mass mobilization because the propaganda narrative that he is pushing is that Russia is not waging a war but is conducting a limited-scale military operation.

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