Active Conflicts & News Megathread September 01, 2025

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[u/Awkward-Ad-5359]

Is Russia ever having problems to find more soldiers?

Russian meatwaves are relentless. If they start having problems to find soldiers it will (hopefully) give Ukrainians some time to rest by slowing down the meatwave tactic to some degree.

I'd appreciate it if you shared what you know about that.

[u/IntroductionNeat2746 → u/Awkward-Ad-5359]

On that topic, I've been wondering for a while now about Russian sign in bonus. Earlier this year there was a big focus on that and the bonus kept going up, but I haven't heard anything in months.

[u/Corbakobasket → u/IntroductionNeat2746]

It's stagnating, and in some regions it even decreased.

It appears that, partly to the broader effort to make the war cheaper, enlistment bonus have been revised down. Also most of Russias regions were sourcing money from their own funds and eventually ran out.

That being said I don't know if it discouraged people from enlisting.

[u/IntroductionNeat2746 → u/Corbakobasket]

That being said I don't know if it discouraged people from enlisting.

That's the million ruble question. In theory, it's definitely should, but with a worsening economy, people might be willing to volunteer for less money.

[u/mirko_pazi_metak → u/IntroductionNeat2746]

It's currently a life-changing sum - one could say once-in-a-lifetime opportunity - for the contractnik and their family. In many cases it's more money than they would bring back to their family over a whole lifetime of  paychecks minus the booze.

This is why Russians aren't complaining about the war dead - these are all people who made this deal willingly and so did their families, now living on their death-in-service payouts and without their drunkard deadbeat husband/father/son.

Once this balance changes and it's no longer buying them a flat and a (Chinese) car, fewer and fewer will join up and instead opt to smuggle petrol or similar as the the worsening economy under government restrictions is always followed by gray economy & black markets. 

I'm sure Putin is well aware of the danger and will try to balance things out - and he seemed well capable in doing so, so far. My hope is that as Russia gets stretched thin everywhere then something unexpected happens and shakes thibgs apart. Doesn't have to be another Prigozhin-like mutiny - just a sudden oil price drop which Saudis alone can orchestrate, or similar. We'll see!