In the second quarter of 2025, 37,900 people received sign-on bonuses for contracts with Russia’s Defense Ministry, iStories reported on August 18, citing federal budget data.
That figure is two and a half times lower than during the same period in 2024, when 92,800 Russians collected the bonuses.
The April–June period marked the lowest number of new recruits in two years. Fewer signed up only in the second quarter of 2023, when Moscow launched a major campaign to attract contract soldiers. At that time, 22,900 people enlisted.
Altogether, 127,500 people received sign-on bonuses in the first half of 2025, compared with 166,200 in the same period the year before, according to iStories’ calculations.
iStories noted that these numbers diverge sharply from figures given earlier by Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council. Medvedev claimed that 210,000 people had signed contracts in the first half of 2025 — about one and a half times more than the budget records indicate.