When a state starts paying middlemen to bring it soldiers, that is no longer recruitment - it is a market. And like every market, the price says everything. In Russia that price has reached a million roubles per person delivered in some regions, or around 22,200 dollars.

More than half of Russia's regions now offer a cash reward to anyone who finds a new contract soldier for the war in Ukraine. By August 2026, 56 regions had introduced such rewards - last year there were 31. Of these, 38 run official programmes, while the rest, according to the analysis the reports cite, hand out the money through private employment agencies. The line between official and unofficial is fairly thin here.

Smolensk jumped the most

The sharpest increase was recorded in the Smolensk region, where the reward for a delivered recruit jumped from 115,000 to a million roubles. Almost ninefold, in a single year. At the same time the one-off payment for the newly recruited soldier himself rose from 1.6 to 2.1 million roubles. There were increases in Samara, Ryazan, Saratov, Irkutsk, Kaliningrad and Kemerovo too, as well as in the Republic of Altai.

The most telling figure comes from the Ryazan region. There, a middleman who brings in a man from another Russian region or a foreigner gets 804,598 roubles. If he brings in a local resident - 57,471. Fourteen times less for a neighbour. That is not a price list for patriotism, it is a price list for resistance: the locals are already gone or no longer willing, so the money goes where there is still somebody left to persuade.

„If recruitment fails, mobilisation follows”

Sergei Krivenko of the human rights organisation „Citizen. Army. Law” says the rise in bonuses shows the pressure the regions are under, and says the sentence the whole of Russia is waiting for: if recruitment fails, mobilisation follows.

German economist Janis Kluge estimates the number of new contract soldiers is at its lowest level in three years. Economist Dmitry Nekrasov, on the other hand, believes Russia can keep raising the bonuses, because the current sums are modest compared with the total cost of deploying one soldier. In other words - there is still room in the budget before it comes to coercion.

The laws are written in advance

The Institute for the Study of War believes the Kremlin is already creating the legal conditions for a wider mobilisation, by expanding the powers of the security services. In June the State Duma passed a law allowing people with certain criminal records to sign contracts with the Defence Ministry during a mobilisation. Deputy Defence Minister Viktor Goryemkin said openly that this would expand the pool of potential soldiers. Back in late 2025 Putin signed laws enabling reservists to be deployed into combat without declaring a general mobilisation of the entire country.

So the machine is assembled: the laws exist, the powers are expanded, and the money holds the whole thing together while paying is still worth it. The Balkans know this sequence by heart - first the volunteers, then the rewards, then the lists. The question is not whether Moscow has more roubles. The question is how long the rouble stays cheaper than the call-up.