The regional bonuses paid out to men volunteering as soldiers have gone up again to over RUB3mn ($30,000) in some regions as the Kremlin finds it increasingly hard to replace the killed and wounded.

However, despite the rising pay and incentives the Ministry of Defence still only values a Russian soldiers’ life at some RUB11mn ($115,000), or about a third of the average Russian’s earning power over their whole life, but still the equivalent of as much as 13 years pay in a normal job.

As bne IntelliNews reported, the payout of RUB3mn is a huge amount in Russia, where the average monthly wage is around RUB70,000 ($725). A Siberian bus driver earns a little more after recent pay rises to keep them at their jobs, but drivers can earn twice as much, not counting the sign-up bonuses, working for the Ministry of Defence, and many have left for the south.

The surge in compensation is a result of the growing demand for military personnel and the mounting pressure the centre is putting on the regions, which are set recruitment quotas and have to pay the bonuses out of their local budgets.

In ten regions, the combined payments – regional contributions plus the "presidential bonus" of RUB 400,000 introduced by Russian President Vladimir Putin – now exceed RUB2mn, reports Kommersant.

The highest incentive comes from the Belgorod region, located near the Ukrainian border. Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov recently announced a payment increase from RUB800,000 to RUB2.6mn. Moscow has also raised its offer to RUB2.3mn, while St. Petersburg, and resource-rich areas such as Khanty-Mansiysk and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrugs, follow close behind. Military-industrial hubs like Kurgan and Sverdlovsk regions, along with Krasnodar Krai, Tatarstan and Karachay-Cherkessia, are also among the top ten offering the highest payments.

Other regions have seen more moderate increases. Since the summer, the Chelyabinsk region has doubled its payments to RUB705,000, while Tyumen offers 600,000 and Buryatia RUB500,000. Notably, Stavropol has multiplied its offer sevenfold, from RUB200,000 to RUB1.5mn. In poorer areas such as Bryansk, Ulyanovsk and the Altai and Tyva republics, the payments have been raised to match Putin’s RUB400,000 in addition to the presidential bonus. This guarantees a minimum payout of RUB800,000 to any contract soldier in Russia.

After the partial mobilisation last September, Putin has been resolutely avoiding a general mobilisation, which could spark social unrest, and has relied on voluntary recruitment to replenish losses at the front in Ukraine.

The monthly recruitment rate for contract soldiers currently stands at 25,000 to 30,000, according to Kommersant , approximately the same number leaving the battlefield each month due to death, injury or desertion. The Russian military's recruitment efforts in 2024 are keeping force numbers stable but will fall short of last year’s record 490,000 contract soldiers that saw the army increase by 15% in size from the start of the war. And last month Putin ordered the army be expanded again from 1mn to a total of 1.5mn men this year.

Cost of a Russian life

The costs associated with the manpower shortage are enormous. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Russia is estimated to have lost 615,000 troops, including 115,000 fatalities and 500,000 wounded. In contrast, Ukrainian losses are estimated to be half as severe, at 57,500 killed and 250,000 wounded, according to Kommersant.

Currently, the increased payments offered to contract soldiers plus the death compensation are seen by the public as aligning with public perceptions of the financial value of life in Russia. Surveys suggest that the average "fair compensation" for a death is between RUB5mn and RUB8mn. The maximum posthumous compensation paid out to a soldiers' family is approximately RUB11mn ($115,000).

Compared to the total earning capacity of an average Russia over his entire life the RUB11mn compensation is about a third of what a soldier would have earned over his career. Assuming recruitment at 25 years of age and earning RUB70,000 a month until retirement at 65, the average working man would earn a total of RUB33.6mn ($350,000) over his lifetime.

However, Russian military servicemen are one of the few professions that continue to enjoy the Soviet-era perk of early retirement; in Soviet times those doing difficult or prestigious jobs, or working in mines and “monocities” deep in the difficult conditions of Russia’s vast hinterland, were rewarded not only with higher pay but also early retirement. Russian military servicemen typically retire between the ages of 45 and 50, depending on their rank and years of service, after which they receive their state pension. On average, retired servicemen with 20 years of service receive a pension equal to around 50% of their final salary. As of 2023, the average military pension is estimated to be between RUB30,000 and RUB40,000 per month (about $260 to $350), though higher-ranking officers may receive more.

Adjusting the earning power for a soldier’s life to this lower retirement age but increasing the average monthly salary to the military’s RUB200,000 per month means the total earning capacity of a soldier is higher than a civilian, as soldiers can expect to earn a total of RUB48mn ($480,000) or RUB60mn ($600,000) if they retire at 45 or 50 respectively – both significantly more than the maximum death compensation payout of RUB11mn.

However, Kommersant reports that the average active service duration of a soldier on the front line in this war is only 4.5 months before they are killed or wounded, in which time they would earn just under RUB1mn, making the payout more than ten times higher than the money the soldier has been sending home to his family. As bne IntelliNews reported, regional bank deposit accounts have been swelling in some of the poorest regions as a soldier’s pay is paid to his bank account in his home region, where typically his wife or family have access to the money. For the family, what was already a big increase in monthly salary is then decupled with a very large one-off payment.

Put another way, with a soldier’s salary of RUB200,000 you would have to work for 4.6 years to earn RUB11mn, but with an average salary of RUB70,000 a civilian would have to work for just over 13 years to earn the same amount.