The job recruitment ad, sent via WhatsApp, was short and sweet, aimed at a potential recruit: apply for a position with the national railway company – and end up fighting in the “special military operation,” the Kremlin’s euphemism for the war in Ukraine.
“Recruitment for the SMO continues, from Russian Railways + St. Petersburg + the Defense Ministry. This is 1 million rubles.”
That Russian military commanders and political officials are rushing to bolster troop numbers is no secret. More than 315,000 men have been killed or wounded since the start of the all-out invasion in February 2022, according to U.S. estimates. British officials put the tally at over 400,000.
And it’s no secret that the Kremlin has gone out of its way to avoid a second mobilization – and a repeat of the shock that Russian society experienced in September 2022, when President Vladimir Putin issued that order.
But exactly how military recruiters have managed to keep troop numbers up in the face of withering casualty figures -- more than the Soviet Union suffered in the entirety of the 10-year war in Afghanistan -- while avoiding an unpopular new mobilization has perplexed outside observers.
Private-sector companies are playing a crucial, and little-understood, role in making this happen, according to new findings by Systema, RFE/RL’s Russian investigative unit.
'I Know Them All By Their Surnames'
Through the early months of the invasion, military commanders relied on an improvised system of recruitment to attract volunteers to fight in Ukraine.
Yevgeny Prigozhin’s private mercenary company Wagner pioneered a series of creative campaigns, calling its units an “orchestra” and its soldiers “musicians.”
Wagner, which was incorporated into the Defense Ministry following Prigozhin’s failed mutiny in June 2023 and his death two months later, also recruited heavily among prison inmates, something that continues today.
Putin’s 2022 mobilization decree aimed at recruiting 300,000 new troops, using a mix of enticements as well as direct draft orders for military reservists. The order stunned Russian society, prompting an exodus of hundreds of thousands of people to places like Armenia, Georgia, and Central Asia, putting a strain on the domestic labor pool for highly skilled, specialized workers.
Loath to use a mandatory draft, authorities also began offering high wages, bonuses, and perks to attract soldiers. In many poorer regions, signing bonuses, plus benefits for war widows and survivors, dwarfed total annual salaries for many people, in what experts said amounted to a massive transfer of wealth by the Kremlin.
But authorities have also relied on, and pressured, private-sector companies to help bolster troop numbers.
Large state-run or state-owned companies like Russian Railways, the national railroad company, have used internal and external headhunter companies to recruit people to fight in Ukraine, Systema found. The recruitment aims to meet quotas set by regional and federal authorities, while also avoiding sending more qualified specialists, like engineers.
After contacting a dozen recruiters in several cities and inquiring about the terms for signing a military contract, an RFE/RL correspondent received a recruiting message from a Russian Railways representative, promising a mix of payments and bonuses coming from the company, along with the Defense Ministry.
After making contact with a recruiter -- a 55-year-old woman named Alla Pronina -- the correspondent was directed to the railroad company’s internal security division, where the fictitious job position would be housed.
In St. Petersburg, billboards and websites are filled with advertisements for contract soldiers.
The main webpage of the website of a major St. Petersburg energy company, Yugo-Zapadnaya CHPP, greets readers with a large pop-up banner, inviting applicants to register as an employee and then go on to fight in Ukraine. The company promises an additional 405,000 rubles ($4,440), on top of the regular amount provided by the Defense Ministry.
Road maintenance companies and construction companies are also actively recruiting. One recruiter told RFE/RL that a 400,000-ruble bonus would be coming from the St. Petersburg Construction Committee, a city department.
Another recruiter appearing to represent Vozrozhdeniye, a St. Petersburg road and building company controlled by billionaire businessman Igor Bukato, tried to reassure the target audience that a recruitment scheme overseen by the company was “100 percent clean.”
“Just like the first 1,000 people who came before you, you will receive the payment without issue,” the recruiter, who gave his name as Dmitry, said in a voice message to RFE/RL.
“I have 20 people from Vozrozhdeniye [who went to fight in Ukraine],” Marina, another human resources officer from the company, also reassured RFE/RL in a phone conversation. “I know them all by their surnames.”
The company did not respond to written questions submitted by RFE/RL seeking further comment. The St. Petersburg Construction Committee, and city administration authorities also did not respond to RFE/RL requests for comment.
'Bring A Friend!'
Wagner’s legal existence has been in limbo since the Prigozhin mutiny, though experts believe its business operations and military hierarchy has been incorporated into the Defense Ministry.
Still, Wagner, or people posing as former Wagner mercenaries, have utilized the company’s brand name and marketing logos, and continued to advertise and recruit heavily, using names like “The Orchestra” or “The Order.”
Advertisements for The Order first started appearing on Russian social media networks in August 2023, about a month after the mutiny. Advertisements for The Orchestra, which appeared in February 2024, seem to be targeting foreigners for recruitment. Photos posted to social media suggest that Indians are among the largest non-Russian groups that have been recruited.
One recruiter for The Orchestra told RFE/RL that foreign recruits are trained directly by officers from the 810th Separate Marine Infantry Brigade, a unit that suffered heavily in the early months of the war.
In the central city of Volzhsk, in February 2024, leaflets began circulating “inviting” people to apply for employment with the Nizhne-Volzhsky Pipe Factory.
In addition to payments from the regional authorities, and the Defense Ministry, the potential employee is also promised a one-time bonus of 250,000 rubles ($2,740) from the factory itself.
Moreover, anyone who brings a friend for employment, and deployment to Ukraine, gets an additional 50,000-ruble ($550) bonus.
“The promotion is really good, sell your friend for 50,000,” a commentator remarked in a post on a Volzhsk social media chat.
In other regions, local governments and private companies have rolled out similar schemes, luring recruits with extra payments. The government of the central region of Tatarstan offers signing bonuses of 205,000 rubles ($2,240) from local companies. In the Yaroslavl region, northeast of Moscow, local business reportedly doubled the amount of signing bonuses in February 2024.
A recruiter from the Samara region told RFE/RL that it was possible to go to war as an employee of Avtovaz, a major automobile manufacturer and important employer in central Russia. In Vologda, another region northeast of Moscow, a veterans organization affiliated with the space agency, Roskosmos, announced it was paying 300,000-ruble ($3,285) signing bonuses.
Even though the job vacancies being filled by potential applicants are fictional, the system is strictly organized. Upon signing a contract with a private company, a potential recruit is immediately directed to local military registration office to sign Defense Ministry contracts. If a person changes his mind, he receives no payment – and possibly other punishment.
'No Long-Term Planning'
The bulk of companies participating in these military recruitment schemes appear to be large, private industrial companies or state-owned enterprises. IT companies, or banks, do not appear to be part of the effort.
The motivation for participating appears to be various, experts and recruiters said. Some businesses receive tax breaks and grants for recruiting people for the Ukraine war.
Pronina, the Russian Railways recruiter, told RFE/RL that by participating in the effort, the company is able to avoid having to send its own qualified specialists to fight.
“Companies have engineers who take a long time to train. Companies must provide a certain number of volunteers for the” war,” she said. “And instead of these volunteers, they’ll take you. So it’s a nice bonus for you, and they don’t have to send their engineers.”
Pavel Luzin, an expert on Russia’s military currently teaching at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in the United States, said the recruitment system has likely been improvised under pressure from regional elites, regional governors.
“There is no long-term planning in this,” he said.
Recruitment with the promise of additional benefits, according to Luzin, is designed for “not the smartest people, those without clear moral principles.”
