The average regional payment for signing a contract in March 2026 reached a record 1.47 million rubles — and still didn't work. According to economist Janis Kluge, who analyzes the budget expenditures of Russian regions, the recruitment pace fell to approximately 800 people per day in early 2026, compared to 1,000–1,200 per day in the first quarter of 2025. The reduction is about 20%.
What the figures say
Kluge builds his estimates not on Kremlin statements, but on data from the Russian Ministry of Finance: regions publish expenses for signing bonuses, from which the number of new contractors can be calculated backwards. To exclude distortions caused by some regions temporarily reducing bonuses in late 2025 due to budget pressure, he isolated a control group — regions that did not change payments for nine consecutive months. The trend was confirmed in this group as well.
«There are signs that this stimulus is no longer working effectively and that Russia has begun losing more soldiers than it can recruit»
Janis Kluge, economist, expert on Russian economics
In parallel, regions pay daily compensation for 250–300 killed. Russia's total monthly front-line losses, according to Western analysts, range from 30 to 35 thousand people.
Why the money stopped working
The answer lies not in the size of payments, but in demographics and competition for people. The war has triggered the most acute labor shortage in Russian history: defense factories operate around the clock at the limits of their capacity and compete for the same category of men that the army is trying to recruit. Additionally, there are approximately 500 thousand killed since the beginning of the invasion and hundreds of thousands of men who left after the partial mobilization of 2022.
- The official recruitment pace announced by Medvedev on March 27: 80,000+ contracts — roughly 930 per day.
- The pace in May 2025, according to official data: ~1,182 per day — meaning the annual plan was being fulfilled faster.
- The share of military spending in the federal budget in Q1 2026: almost half of all federal expenditures.
What comes next
The attrition strategy on which the Kremlin built its calculation from February 2022 was based on simple arithmetic: losses are compensated by a stream of volunteers sufficient to maintain pressure on the front. This arithmetic no longer adds up. Analysts warn that Putin may be forced to resort to a new forced mobilization — with restrictions on the exit of men of draft age.
The first "partial" mobilization of 2022 provoked mass emigration and remains toxic in Russian public discourse. If the pace of voluntary recruitment does not recover to 2025 levels by the end of summer, the choice between forced mobilization and a gradual reduction in offensive capabilities will become not hypothetical for the Kremlin, but practical.
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