NATO intelligence: 30-40 thousand people are being recruited into the Russian army every month

^{Photo: TASS}
The Russian government has significantly increased the rate of recruitment for the war, thanks to bonuses for those who have concluded contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense and strong military propaganda. This was reported by The Wall Street Journal, citing American and European officials familiar with intelligence information.

According to estimates, the Russian army is now recruiting about 30 thousand new soldiers every month - 5 thousand more than last summer. According to European sources, this figure could reach up to 40 thousand people. This will allow the Kremlin not only to make up for losses in Ukraine, but also to form new military units deployed on Russian territory.

According to calculations by Janis Kluge, a researcher at the Institute for International Security Studies in Germany, based on data from the Russian Ministry of Finance, one-time bonuses paid to military personnel under contract with the Ministry of Defense are costing the Russian budget about 2 billion rubles a day.

About 75 percent of these costs (1.5 billion rubles) are paid by regional authorities - they spend almost 3 percent of their budgets on recruiting new military personnel according to the plan set by Moscow. The remaining half a billion rubles are financed from the federal budget.

It is noted that the costs of the "recruitment machine" have increased almost 5 times compared to April 2024. If the current pace is maintained, by the end of the year these costs will cost the Russian budget 730 billion rubles. This is half the annual budget of the entire higher education system in the country (1.5 trillion rubles) and more than twice the amount allocated for the national healthcare project for 2025 (369 billion rubles).

Last year, the Russian Ministry of Defense managed to recruit 440,000 people for the war in Ukraine - an average of 1.2 thousand people per day. Since then, bonuses paid for contracts have increased again, and in some regions this amount has reached $ 20 thousand. This is more than the annual income of most Russians.

According to George Barros, a leading expert on Russia at the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW), even taking into account the current level of losses, the Kremlin can maintain the army for another 12-16 months. Read 'Zamin' on Telegram!