War in Ukraine. Big money and mobilization. This is how Putin builds an army

First, a caveat: media reports can lead to certain erroneous conclusions. A few days ago in Moscow a delegation of the Sri Lankan authorities visited, demanding, among other things, payment of benefits to the families of Sri Lankans killed in Ukraine. Asians fought in the Russian army, tempted by the prospect of high pay and substantial compensation.

These were not paid, the case reached “the highest factors”and on this occasion it came to light that Moscow managed to persuade two thousand Sri Lankans to serve. Some of them still serve in Ukraine, next to the citizens India, Nepal and at least several African countries.

Until now it was no secret that Russia “fishing” for representatives of the former Asian Soviet republics, but we knew little about recruitment in other parts of the world. Now, judging by the flood of reports, one might get the impression that foreigners make up a significant percentage of the Russian invasion force – and that's not true.

There are several thousand of them, about 50 thousand if we include citizens of the former USSR. It's a lot, but it doesn't change the fact that it's crushing the majority of the 700,000-strong contingent in Ukraine are Russians. Or, more precisely, citizens of the Russian Federation, with specific ethnic, social and status characteristics.

To develop the theme of this specificity, a historical introduction is necessary. In early 1969 cold war between China and the USSR turned into a hot border conflict. The tension escalated to such an extent that Kremlin the ultimate weapon was considered.

It ended in fear, hundreds of victims and decades of distrust between the two countries. As a result until the fall of the USSR, large forces of the Soviet army were stationed on the border with China – over 700 thousand soldiers – with a million soldiers waiting on the other side. The collapse of the Soviet Union did not mean that this large contingent intended for a possible war with China (and taking over Mongoliathrough which the shortest route to Beijing led) disappeared into oblivion.

Yes, like the entire red army – on the basis of which the Russian army was founded – it went into decline, but was still a serious force. At the same time, thanks to its impressive infrastructure and facilities, it is the most serious employer in Buryatia and Zabaikalsky Krai.

And this is still the case today, because the aforementioned distrust is still alive and well. And this directly affects the situation in Ukraine, which translates into the ethnic composition of the Russian army, a large part of which was sent to the Dnieper directly from Siberia. When looking for an explanation for its “Asianness”, one cannot ignore the status of the military in the Russian provinces. For its inhabitants the army is a chance for secure employmenti.e. a relatively stable life, social benefits and a relatively high pension.

This does not only apply to Buryatia and Transbaikal, but the entire impoverished Trans-Ural Russia and its most pauperized European enclaves. Poverty is another important factor that determines the ethnic composition of Putin's army. Long before the invasion of Ukraine, representatives of Russian minorities were more likely than ethnic Russians to sign contracts with the army because they usually live in backward regions.

In 2021, unemployment in Ingushetia was 31%, in Dagestan and Tuva 15%. In Chechnya it exceeded 14 percent, in North Ossetia 13 percent, and in Karachay-Cherkessia and Altai 12 percent. And we are not talking about “temporary breaks in employment” (in English between jobs – ed.), but structurally exclusion from the labour market. Not about “inconveniences”, but about a permanent threat to the basics of existence.

In Buryatia in 2022 a decent salary remained at 20,000. rubles, which corresponded to one thousand five hundred zlotys. With prices for food and utilities similar to ours, higher for electronics and clothing. And that was the kind of money you could earn in the capital of the republic, Ulan-Ude, in smaller towns it was much worse.

Meanwhile, the army has always paid several times as much, and when the “special military operation” began – even ten times more. And of course, the front “grind” in many cases destroys dreams of a stable life, but looking more broadly, the death of soldiers does not have to mean a material catastrophe for their family members.

In the summer of 2022, Rossiya 1 TV broadcast a report on to the parents of Alexei Malov, a Russian soldier killed in Ukraine. 31-year-old Malov, a resident of a village in the Saratov Oblast before the war, died at the beginning of the invasion. He was awarded posthumously a medal for courage, and a “funeral” to his living parents. In the material, the couple proudly spoke about their son and the allowance they received, with which they bought, among other things, brand new Lada. White, because that was what Alexei dreamed of – we heard from his father's lips. “For the first trip in a new car, my parents went to the cemetery to visit their son”said the narrator.

The message of the report was clear – there is no child, but there is a car. And the rest of the considerable compensation, amounting to almost one million zlotys.

The material, however bizarre, was part of a whole range of Russian propaganda activities aimed at “their own”. The message boiled down to the statement: “regardless of the circumstances, the participation of a family member in a special operation will pay off”it's hard to call it subtle, but was it effective?

In the spring and summer of 2022, Russian media regularly reported on cases of denunciations of sons (husbands, fathers) who “they avoided military service on days important for the country”and to put it bluntly, they did not want to give themselves and their loved ones a chance to earn money and “get even”. Some editorial offices did it triumphantly, others in a more gloomy tone, noticing the destructive effects on interpersonal relationships of the pressure exerted on each other by members of Russian families.

Moreover, this is a significant phenomenon – this media campaign, aimed at recruiting volunteers to serve in Ukraine, and the reasons why it was launched. At the same time, a large-scale campaign referring to patriotic and pro-state values ​​is carried out in the media and on the streets, but financial incentives remain the essence of recruitment. We are therefore dealing with a failure of the Putin regime.who so often referred to nationalist ideas in his rhetoric, in practice, he faced social indifference to lofty slogans and proclamations.

The potential Russian recruit declaratively supports the state's policy, but no thought of risking his life for her. The Soviet Union was already facing an ideological void, Putin wanted to fill this void with nationalist-religious-imperial fervor. In 2022, he didn't quite succeed, so the regime started offering huge amounts of money by Russian standards. Despite this, there were still too few willing people and the army had to resort to non-standard solutions, such as propose shortening sentences to prisoners.

In this context, it is worth recalling the findings of the Russian independent website Mediazona and the Russian section of the BBC. By May this year, journalists from both editorial offices confirmed the death of 52,000. soldiers of Putin's army.

And the calculations were based on only on publicly available sources: obituaries, posts by family members on social media, articles in local newspapers and websites, and official announcements from regional authorities. In the statistical “gray zone” There are undoubtedly more names of the fallen (probably 5-8 times as many), but that's not the point. Namely, among those over 50 thousand fallen, almost every sixth was a convict, dragged from the penal colony straight to the front. Never before has a regular army relied so heavily on marginalized people.

So we have economic and situational duress as basic recruitment tools. But they also proved insufficient, so in the autumn of 2022 Putin decided on the so-called partial mobilization. That is, again, coercion, this time not based on the carrot strategy (attracting benefits), but on the stick (the essence of conscription is sanctions). The media around the world focused on the initial version of this undertaking – 300,000 mobilized men – usually not noticing that The procedures launched at that time ensured a constant supply of recruits for the Russian army.

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