Conflict Intelligence Team (en)

The math doesn’t add up. CIT conducted an analysis of open source data to determine what is really happening with volunteer fighter recruitment

Last week, Dmitry Medvedev [Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council] once again reported on the progress of the recruitment campaign to find contract soldiers for the war against Ukraine. He claimed that 410,000 individuals had joined the ranks of the Russian Armed Forces between Jan. 1 and Nov. 9. If Medvedev is to be believed, the authorities would have thus met their objectives for 2023. Their plan, according to various estimates, was to recruit between 400,000 and 415,000 people.

Under closer examination, however, the situation “on the ground” does not look so good for Russia. In the middle of August, for instance, a video recorded during a meeting with employees of a Tolyatti company shows an official discussing both recruitment targets and the true state of affairs. Apparently, the city was handed down a target of 2,000 recruits, but managed to sign up just over 250, or only 12.5% of the required number, four or five months after the start of the campaign.

On Nov. 11, the Free Yakutia foundation published the recording of a closed-door meeting of officials held in September, during which the military commissar of Yakutia [Russia’s constituent republic] presented data on the fulfillment of the recruitment plan by various districts in the republic. We have compiled this data into a table, adding the population figures of each district to enhance clarity. As shown in our table, the republic aimed to recruit at least 3,322 people (slightly more in reality, as the military commissar did not provide data for all districts). This figure corresponds to approximately 470,000 people when extrapolated nationwide. The plan for Yakutia might have been above average, potentially aiming to compensate for shortfalls in regions like Moscow, where, as stated by Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin, the plan was fulfilled by recruiting 22,000 people—a number evidently disproportionate to the city's demographic capabilities. However, by September, Yakutia had recruited less than a third of the required 3,322 people, specifically 1,017 individuals, or only 30.6% of the plan.

In light of these two sources, it becomes evident that the actual recruitment rate significantly lags behind the data regularly voiced by Medvedev, and the target remains far from being met. The recent campaign to increase sign-on bonuses for potential contract soldiers serves as additional confirmation. In the past two weeks alone, at least five regions have introduced additional or increased existing bonuses paid upon signing a contract. While this practice has been ongoing throughout the recruitment campaign, the concurrent year-end initiatives in several federal subjects indicate that local authorities are facing challenges in meeting their recruitment quotas. We believe that the aim of such measures is not necessarily to achieve a 100% goal—officials must realize this is impossible—but rather to surpass their counterparts in other regions and avoid ending up at the bottom of the KPI list, where the recruitment of contract soldiers significantly influences the rankings.

In summary, a range of various OSINT data confirms our belief that the number of recruited contract soldiers declared by Medvedev is far from reality. Simultaneously, to obtain a more complete picture, it is important to understand whether the data announced by regional authorities includes mobilized soldiers, volunteer fighters and conscripts signing contracts with the Ministry of Defense. If you have any information on this topic, along with verified recruitment data in a particular region or district, please feel free to share it with us through our anonymous Telegram bot.