Russia is pitching citizens on joining the war against Ukraine through headhunters offering a recruitment advertisement that mixes economic rescue, social redemption, and family security, reported Politico.
The news outlet spoke with multiple recruits and recruiters for its story.
Russian President Vladimir Putin last year ordered the regular size of the Russian army to be increased by 180,000 troops to 1.5 million active servicemen in a move that would make it the second largest in the world after China's.
Although Russia has a population more than three times larger than Ukraine's and has been successfully recruiting volunteers on lucrative contracts to fight in Ukraine, it has — like Kyiv's forces — been sustaining heavy battlefield losses, and there is no sign of the war ending anytime soon.
Estimates of Russian military deaths in Ukraine differ widely, in part because both sides tightly control casualty information. Open-source investigators have confirmed more than 150,000 Russian fatalities by name, while broader assessments put the actual toll anywhere from roughly 165,000 to more than 480,000.
According to Politico, Russia's wartime headhunters earn commissions for recruiting fighters.
They offer a "join-the-front" benefits package that includes signing bonuses up to $50,000, promises like debt relief, free childcare, and support for soldiers' families and guaranteed university placements for their children.
Citizens with criminal records, serious illnesses, or HIV can also sign up.
"Assuming that Putin is able to continue to fund the enormous enlistment bonuses (and death payments, too) and to find the manpower currently enticed to serve," former CIA Director David Petraeus told Politico, Russia "can sustain the kind of costly, grinding campaign that has characterized the fighting in Ukraine since the last major achievements on either side in the second year of the war."
Putin warned Friday that Russia would take Ukraine's eastern Donbas region "by force" if its troops do not leave.
"Either we liberate these territories by force of arms, or Ukrainian troops leave these territories," Putin, who is currently on a state visit to India, said in an interview with India Today.
Putin reportedly has rejected key elements of the U.S.-backed proposal to end the war in Ukraine, saying there were parts of the proposal he "can't accept."
U.S. President Donald Trump set in motion the most intense diplomatic push to stop the fighting since Russia launched the full-scale invasion of its neighbor nearly four years ago. But the effort has once again run into demands that are hard to reconcile, especially over whether Ukraine must give up land to Russia and how it can be kept safe from any future aggression by Moscow.
Putin said his five-hour talks Tuesday with Witkoff and Kushner were "necessary" and "useful," but also "difficult work," and some proposals were unacceptable.
"We had to go through practically every point, which is why it took so much time," he said. "It was a meaningful, highly specific and substantive conversation. Sometimes we said, 'Yes, we can discuss this, but with that one we cannot agree.'"
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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