As its war with Ukraine is now approaching its 32nd month, Russia is reportedly having trouble replenishing the troops that it lost.
New reports are suggesting that Russia has lost more than 630,000 military troops during the war, which has lasted more than 900 days now. Those losses are becoming so large for the country now, as it’s having trouble replenishing them on the battlefields.
The Kremlin has initiated a variety of different tactics to do so, which includes using prison inmates and hiring foreign mercenaries, but it’s still having trouble recruiting new soldiers.
Some estimates suggest that Russia recruits about 1,000 troops every day, but that doesn’t offset its daily casualty rate, which at times is more than that number.
The Russian Ministry of Defense has tried to incentivize people to join the military ranks, increasing the amount of sign-up bonuses it gives and making it so that serving in the military is more lucrative than serving in a lot of civilian jobs.
The downside to this from an economic standpoint is that it’s very costly, as it now accounts for roughly 8% of Russia’s total federal spending.
A recent war estimate conducted by the British Military Intelligence found:
“It is likely that Russian military recruitment rates in 2024 have decreased compared to rates achieved in 2023. … Russian officials suggested in late 2023 that the Russian MOD [Ministry of Defense] was recruiting at a rate of around 1,600 daily.
“However, publicly cited figures this year put that rate at around 1,000 daily. These figures are themselves probably inflated to an extent.”
Many Western intelligence agencies have estimated that Russia has about 500,000 troops stationed in Ukraine, which includes the Crimean Peninsula, which it illegally annexed in 2014.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense released data recently that showed that in a 24-hour period last week, pro-Russian separatists, paramilitary forces and Russian military forces suffered approximately 1,020 captured, wounded or killed soldiers.
In a recent seven-day period, there have been roughly 8,200 casualties, which amounts to roughly 1,171 per day, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.
One thing that Russia has had to do as a result is to try to attract more people to sign up for military service. The country has used hefty sign-up bonuses as a way to do that.
At times, these bonuses total thousands of dollars. The bonuses alone are more money than a recruit would be able to earn in the private sector for many months of work.
As the British Military Intelligence concluded:
“This has led the Russian MOD to increase sign-on bonuses in August 2024, an increasingly expensive recruitment strategy for Russia. Estimates suggest military personnel payments amounted to around 8% of federal spending in the year to June 2024.
“Payment increases will nonetheless probably bolster recruitment levels for the remainder of the year.”
