Russia faces deepening soldier crisis as Putin's volunteer push falls flat

In Russia, the shortage of soldiers is deepening after Ukrainian forces launched an offensive on its territory. This has prompted Moscow to increase rewards for volunteers, Bloomberg reported. According to experts, President Putin needs 500,000 personnel. Another round of mobilisation is possible.

The worsening shortage of soldiers to fight in Ukraine has led Russia to raise recruit rewards to avoid an unpopular mobilisation. So far, the agency reports, there are no signs that this is effective.

According to Bloomberg, the army is not recruiting enough new soldiers to compensate for the losses on the front, which are currently the highest since the start of the full-scale war against Ukraine in February 2022.

A person familiar with the situation told Bloomberg that regional officials are meeting on average just under two-thirds of their recruitment target.

Two sources told the agency that Russia may consider another mobilisation. According to one, this could be framed as a rotation to relieve soldiers fighting on the front. According to another, the new draft could be announced as early as the end of this year.

The inability of Russia to repel the Ukrainian offensive, ongoing since the 6th of August, has highlighted the lack of reserves in the Russian army, Bloomberg writes.

Moscow has hundreds of thousands of soldiers on the front line, where they are suffering increasing losses, although the front line is essentially not moving. President Vladimir Putin ordered the mobilisation of 300,000 reservists in September 2022, causing increased concern about the war among Russians and an exodus of a million people from the country. Not wanting to repeat that experience, the Kremlin is focusing on appeals for patriotism and cash offers to attract 30,000 new soldiers each month necessary to replenish losses, the report reads.

For this reason, Bloomberg emphasizes, the Kremlin has significantly increased the pay for recruits from federal and regional authorities. The pressure is so high that richer provinces attract men from poorer regions with higher rewards.

The scale of Russian losses and the insufficient replenishment level increasingly hinder maintaining the current strategy of slowly working out new gains in Ukraine. Bloomberg reports, citing a person familiar with the situation, that there is no longer talk of conquering Kyiv and other cities because Russia lacks soldiers.

In July, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin promised £17,600 to volunteers who sign military contracts, in addition to £5,200 annually, paid in monthly instalments by the city authorities, and bonuses offered by the Ministry of Defence.

According to the Moscow mayor, new recruits can receive £42,000 in their first year of service if they survive. This is roughly three times the average salary in Moscow.

Putin also instructed the government to double the federal reward paid to new recruits to £3,400 by the end of the year and called on provinces to allocate similar amounts. Some regions are turning to Moscow for grants as they cannot meet this demand, said an official familiar with the situation.

According to Bloomberg economist Alex Isakov, Putin needs about 500,000 people over the next 12 months to replace personnel losses and rotate soldiers in Ukraine.

He believes Russia's current recruitment strategy, which involves paying volunteers high wages, is not sufficient and the government will have to start focusing on conscription.

Russian authorities do not disclose the extent of their losses in Ukraine. Western estimates suggest that Russia may have lost up to 500,000 soldiers in this war. According to the British Ministry of Defence, the last three months have brought Russia the most losses – in May, an average of 1,262 Russian soldiers died daily.