For Russia’s average wage earners, it is a financial windfall. For prisoners enduring abuse and harsh conditions, it offers a path out of jail. For immigrants and foreign workers, it promises simplified citizenship and steady income.
The requirement is the same for all: sign a military contract and fight in Ukraine.
Nearly four years into a grinding war of attrition, Russia is struggling to replenish its forces while avoiding the political risk of another nationwide mobilization. To meet demand, Moscow has expanded recruitment at home and abroad, offering cash incentives, legal privileges, and freedom from prison — while quietly coercing others into service.
A War That Continues to Consume Manpower
Some of Russia’s reinforcements are arriving from outside the country. After signing a mutual defense treaty with Moscow in 2024, North Korea sent thousands of soldiers to assist Russian forces defending the Kursk region following a Ukrainian incursion.
Elsewhere, men from South Asian countries including India, Nepal and Bangladesh have complained of being misled by recruiters who promised civilian jobs but instead sent them to the battlefield. Officials in Kenya, South Africa and Iraq report similar cases involving their citizens.
These foreign fighters now form part of a vast and constantly replenished force sustaining Russia’s war effort.
How Many Russian Troops Are Fighting?
President Vladimir Putin said at his annual news conference last month that 700,000 Russian troops are currently fighting in Ukraine. He cited the same figure in 2024, and a slightly lower number — 617,000 — in December 2023. The accuracy of these figures cannot be independently verified.
What remains largely hidden are casualty numbers. Moscow has released only limited official data. Britain’s Ministry of Defence estimated last summer that more than 1 million Russian troops may have been killed or wounded.
Independent Russian outlet Mediazona, working with the BBC and volunteers, has identified more than 160,000 confirmed Russian military deaths through open-source records. Among them were over 550 foreigners from more than two dozen countries.
Why Putin Avoids a New Mobilization
Unlike Ukraine — which has enforced martial law and nationwide mobilization since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 — Putin has resisted ordering another broad call-up.
When Russia attempted a limited mobilization of 300,000 men later that year, tens of thousands fled the country. Though the effort stopped after reaching its target, a presidential decree left the door open for future mobilizations. The decree also made military contracts effectively open-ended and barred soldiers from quitting unless they reached age limits or were incapacitated by injuries.
Since then, Moscow has relied primarily on what it describes as voluntary enlistment.
Putin said in December that more than 400,000 people signed military contracts last year, a figure similar to those announced in 2023 and 2024. Independent verification is not possible.
Activists warn that contracts often appear to offer fixed service terms — such as one year — but are automatically extended indefinitely, trapping soldiers in prolonged service.
Financial Incentives and Regional Bonuses
To sustain recruitment, Russia offers high pay and extensive benefits.
Regional governments provide enlistment bonuses that can reach tens of thousands of dollars. In the Khanty-Mansi region of central Russia, an enlistee can receive roughly $50,000 in bonuses, according to local authorities.
That sum exceeds twice the region’s average annual income. Monthly salaries there averaged just over $1,600 during the first 10 months of 2025.
Additional incentives include tax exemptions, debt relief and other perks.
Coercion Behind Claims of Voluntary Service
Despite official claims of voluntary enlistment, rights groups and media reports say conscripts are often pressured into signing contracts.
Conscripts — men aged 18 to 30 completing mandatory fixed-term service and legally exempt from deployment to Ukraine — are reportedly coerced by commanding officers into contract service that sends them directly into combat zones.
Recruitment has also expanded to prisoners and detainees in pretrial detention centers. The practice was pioneered early in the war by mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and later institutionalized by the Defense Ministry.
Russian law now allows recruitment of convicted prisoners as well as suspects awaiting trial.
Foreigners Become Prime Targets
Foreign nationals are increasingly targeted both inside Russia and abroad.
New laws grant accelerated Russian citizenship to foreigners who enlist. Activists report police raids in areas populated by migrant workers, where individuals are pressured into service. Newly naturalized citizens are often sent to enlistment offices to determine eligibility for mandatory military duty.
In November, Putin decreed that military service would be mandatory for certain foreigners seeking permanent residency.
Some recruits are allegedly trafficked to Russia under false promises of employment and then forced to sign military contracts. Cuban authorities in 2023 said they identified and moved to dismantle one such trafficking ring operating from Russia.
Nepal, India and Iraq Push Back
Nepal’s Foreign Minister Narayan Prakash Saud told The Associated Press in 2024 that his government requested the return of hundreds of Nepali nationals recruited to fight for Russia, along with the remains of those killed. Nepal subsequently banned its citizens from traveling to Russia or Ukraine for work, citing recruitment risks.
India’s federal investigation agency said in 2024 it dismantled a network that lured at least 35 Indian citizens to Russia under the guise of employment. The men were trained for combat and deployed to Ukraine against their will, with some “grievously injured.”
When Putin hosted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi later that year, New Delhi said Indians who were “misled” into joining the Russian army would be discharged.
Iraqi officials say about 5,000 Iraqi citizens have joined the Russian military, alongside an unspecified number fighting for Ukraine. Baghdad has cracked down on recruitment networks, convicting one man of human trafficking and sentencing him to life imprisonment.
An unknown number of Iraqis have been killed or gone missing. Families report cases of deception and forced enlistment, while others acknowledge relatives joined voluntarily for pay or citizenship.
“Dispensable” Fighters on the Front Line
Foreign recruits are particularly vulnerable, according to Anton Gorbatsevich of the activist group Idite Lesom (“Get Lost”), which helps soldiers desert.
They often lack Russian language skills, military experience, and social protections. As a result, commanders treat them as expendable.
“They are deemed dispensable, to put it bluntly,”
Gorbatsevich said.
A Costly Strategy for a Slowing Economy
This month, a Ukrainian agency handling prisoners of war said more than 18,000 foreign nationals have fought or are currently fighting on Russia’s side. Nearly 3,400 have been killed, and hundreds from 40 countries are now held in Ukraine as POWs.
Even if accurate, the figure represents only a small fraction of the 700,000 troops Putin claims are fighting in Ukraine.
Artyom Klyga, head of the legal department at the Movement of Conscientious Objectors, said foreign recruitment is just one element of Russia’s broader manpower strategy. Most people seeking assistance from his group are Russian citizens trying to avoid service, he noted.
Kateryna Stepanenko, a Russia analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, said the Kremlin has become increasingly “creative” in recruitment over the past two years — especially by targeting foreigners.
But she warned that the strategy comes at a steep price.
Recruitment efforts are becoming “extremely expensive,” she said, at a time when Russia’s economy is slowing and the human cost of the war continues to mount.
