Russians Refuse To Fight

The pace of contract recruitment has fallen to a 2-year low.

The Defense Ministry's recruitment machine, which lures low-income Russians from poorer regions to war, suffered an unexpected setback at the beginning of 2026.

At the end of the first quarter, 70,500 Russians signed up as contractors and volunteers, an expert at the German Institute for International Security Affairs Janis Kluge calculated on the basis of regional budget data, the The Moscow Times.

The average daily recruitment rate fell to 800 per person per day, the lowest since the first quarter of 2024, Kluge's calculations show. Compared to January-March last year, the figure fell by 20%, and relative to the last months of last year - traditionally the most "fruitful" period for Defense Ministry recruiters - by more than 40%.

At the end of 2025, a number of Russian regions reduced signing bonuses amid local budget deficits that totaled a record 1.5 trillion rubles across the country. However, in early 2026, the payments began to grow again: their average value for 47 subjects reached 1.45 million rubles, while the median value reached 1.55 million rubles. This may mean that recruitment is not going "according to plan," and the quotas sent from Moscow may not be met, Kluge notes.

Official data also confirms the decline in the rate of recruitment into the army, he points out. Thus, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitri Medvedev said on March 27 that 80,000 people had signed contracts. This is about 930 people per day, compared to 1,200 in the first quarter of 2025 and about 1,000 in January-March 2024, according to statements by officials.

The gradual exhaustion of mechanisms for attracting people to war for money leads to the fact that the Kremlin may be preparing society for a new "partial mobilization," experts from the American Institute for the Study of War wrote in February.

In their opinion, the creation of "information conditions" for the resumption of forced conscription to the front is evidenced by the blocking of the Internet, laws adopted late last year, which allow the Kremlin to "mobilize" people to the front. In addition, military recruitment offices in Russia have been conducting year-round conscription since November, and in December Putin signed a law on fees for reservists.

The Defense Ministry's 2025 recruitment campaign brought 422,700 people into the army, according to Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Security Council. Another 32,000 people joined volunteer units, and "the task that was set by the supreme commander-in-chief has been accomplished," Medvedev said.

For three years, as Medvedev's words suggest, the influx of those recruited to be sent to the front has decreased by almost 10 percent. In 2024, he reported about 450,000 new contract workers as well as 40,000 who joined voluntary formations, and in 2023 he said half a million were "recruited in the interests of the united grouping of troops."

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