@jakluge.de "The perils of privatized coercion", Russian localities paying "private recruitment agents", "leading to more aggressive and often criminal recruitment methods." Average region bonus is 1.9m rub per contract, up from 1.4m rub last year. Total recruitment by Sep=263k, vs 292k last year.
janiskluge.substack.com
Everything Janis' posts is very good, read the full thing. I appreciate that he added a qualifying comment to explain how he gets to 1.9m rub. The total regional payments divided by total number of recruits = most useful. Caveats: he doesn't have data for all regions, so there's some uncertainty. The big picture is that Russian recruitment costs more and seems to have slowed down. Some areas are funding organised crime groups to bring them men. There are reports of beatings and torture to force the men to sign contracts and the criminals take the money. At the same time, Mediazona has noted that dying Russians are, as a whole, an older group now. Late 40s is the most common age. Ukrainian & Russian military channels are full of anecdotes about declining fitness of Russian stormtroopers. Russia is paying more for fewer, worse troops. Imagine if Republicans hadn't started blocking Ukraine aid funding in 2023. Ukraine would have killed and maimed Russians far faster and we would have hit this point of declining Russian recruitment months, possibly years ago. People massively discount how important $60bn/year in aid allocation is. Summary: Russia's paying more for fewer, likely less-fit men. They're turning to more brutal tactics, including using criminal gangs to lock up and beat men into signing. They'll still say "see comrade, no mobilisation". Lower recruitment limits the strength & length of Russian pushes at the front.