ThemodernRussianarmy — and the regiments fighting in Ukraine make up 47% of its active personne14 — isunique in Russia’s history. For more than three centuries, the core of the armed forces consisted of either recruits (more precisely, serfs sent by landowners for lifelong {until 1793} or 10- to 25-year service) or conscripts (serving from 6-7 years in the late 19th century to 2-3 years in the 1960s-1980s). Throughout this entire era, rank-and-file pay was almost constantly reduced, relative to both officer salaries and average wages in the civilian sector. The 10-ruble annual pay established by Peter the Great was not revised until the early 19th century, resulting in the gap between private and colonel pay growing from 10–12 to well over a hundred times between 1707 and 1811.15 The transition to a conscription system only made things worse; in the 1900s, an infantry soldier received 50 kopecks per month in peacetime and 75 kopecks during the war years, plus one ruble as a special reward in case he was suddenly mobilized16. At the time, the average worker’s pay in European Russia, one should add, stood at 238.55 rubles per year17. During the Great Patriotic (or Second World) War, the salaries of privates and sergeants in the Soviet infantry ranged from 8.5 to 17 rubles monthly, while their commanders were paid between 550 and 2,200 rubles18, while, according to official data, the average salaries in the republics of the Soviet Union in 1944 amounted to 375–570 rubles. Intheearly 1980s, a private’s pay did not exceed three rubles per month, reaching 20–40 rubles only for those serving in the “Limited Contingent of Soviet Forces” in Afghanistan.
14 — Or “about 700,000 people” out of the 1.5 million troops in the Armed Forces; see: “Putin: na linii fronta v SVO nahoditsâ svyše 700 tys. čelovek” [Putin: there are more than 700,000 people on the front line in the SVO], TASS, September 18, 2025, available at: https://tass.ru; “Ukaz Prezidenta Rossijskoj Federacii ot 16.09.2024 g. № 792 ‘Ob ustanovlenii štatnoj čislennosti Vooružennyh Sil Rossijskoj Federacii’” [Presidential Decree No. 792 of September 16, 2024 “On Establishing the Headcount of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation”], Official website of the President of Russia, September 16, 2024, available at: www.kremlin.ru.
15 — B. Mironov, “Žalovan’e oficerov russkoj armii v XVIII – načale XX veka”, Voenno-istoricheskij zhurnal, No. 2, 2016, pp. 45-53.
16 — “Za čto voûem: general’skie tysâči i soldatskie kopejki” [What we are fighting for: generals’ thousands and soldiers’ pennies], Voennoe obozrenie, November 18, 2014, available at: https://topwar.ru.
17 — V. Volkov, “Zarabotnaâ plata russkih rabočih v konce XIX — načale XX vekov” [Wages of Russian workers in the late 19th—early 20th century], Scepsis, 2018, available at: https://scepsis.net.
18 — T. Leonteva, “Kakie denežnye vyplaty polučali na fronte i kak ih tratili”, Rossijskaâ gazeta, May 4, 2024, available at: https://rg.ru.
After the collapse of the USSR, the Russian leadership declared its intention to create a contract army—not so much because of the need to increase the effectiveness of the armed forces, but because of widespread opposition to conscription in Russian society and the inclusion of this requirement in the overall context of the reform agenda. By the mid-1990s, as the Kremlin returned to imperial politics, and especially after the start of the war in Chechnya, this was compounded by an understanding of the importance of the contract system as a tool for reducing protest activity among the population. However, all these factors did not lead to the completion of army reform.
In the late 1990s, the Kremlin leadership started to realize that the military might be made more efficient by recruiting financially motivated fighters. As early as in 1999, at the outbreak ofthe “Second Chechen War”, it was decided to increase sharply the salaries of contract servicemen (up to 25,000 to 28,000 rubles per month for soldiers and up to 50,000+ for officers19 — which contrasted sharply with the average salary in the country, which was then about 1,500 rubles per month; taking devaluation into account, this did not exceed $7020). This move largely ensured the campaign’s success. It should be noted that, from the first days of his rule, Vladimir Putin was inclined to “solve problems” in this particular way. Addressing the relatives of the crew of the Kursk submarine in 2000, he famously proclaimed: “We have decided to pay each family the average salary a submariner earns for 10 years. At once. I emphasize! The [average monthly] wage multiplied by 12 and then once again by 1021…”. At the start of the war with Ukraine in 2022, he would do exactly the same; the death gratuity he established for a killed contract soldier, amounting to 5 million rubles22, echoes this logic (the monthly salary of a contract soldier at the time was just over 35,000 rubles)23. A very similar approach was used even earlier during the operation in Syria: there, contract soldiers were paid up to 200,000 rubles per month24 — four to five times more than usual. However, this should not be considered a form of Putin’s modern deathonomics. In all these cases, higher pay was received by professional soldiers who were already serving under contract and were sent to the combat zone, while during the invasion of Ukraine, higher salaries were initially offered only to those who were mobilized from the reserves or enlisted in the army “voluntarily”.
19 — “Zarplata soldat v Čečne – 28 tysâč rublej” [Salary of soldiers in Chechnya—28 thousand rubles], NewsRu, February 6, 2002, available at: www.newsru.com.
20 — “Ni v odnoj strane srednemesâčnaâ zarplata ne prevyšaet 100 dollarov” [In no country does the average monthly salary exceed 100 dollars], Domoskop Weekly, April 1, 2002, available at: www.demoscope.ru.
21 — Citation by: E. Milashina, “On umeet dyšat’. On živ”, Novaâ Gazeta, August 24, 2000, available at: https://novayagazeta.ru.
22 — “Ukaz Prezidenta RF ot 5 marta 2022 goda № 98 ‘O dopolnitel’nyh social’nyh garantiâh voennoslužaŝim, licam, prohodâŝim službu v vojskah nacional’noj gvardii Rossijskoj Federacii, i členam ih semej’” [Presidential Decree No. 98 of March 5, 2022 “On Additional Social Guarantees for Military Personnel, Persons Serving in the National Guard Troops of the Russian Federation, and Members of their Families”], Baza “Garant”, March 5, 2022, available at: https://base.garant.ru.
23 — A. Stepanov, “Zamministra oborony Tat’âna Ševcova rasskazala, kak povysât žalovan’e voennym” [Deputy Defense Minister Tatyana Shevtsova told how military salaries will be raised], Rossijskaâ gazeta, December 25, 2020, available at: https://rg.ru.
24 — “V Rossii čislo vuzov i studentov v nih katastrofičeski vysokoe” [In Russia, the number of universities and students in them is catastrophically high], Moskovskij Komsomolec, October 25, 2016, available at: https://kuban.mk.ru.
Meanwhile, in the 1990s and 2000s, three trends emerged that became important catalysts for transforming the Russian army into a mercenary force, in the sense noted above.
First, market reforms in Russia have not only produced a sharp increase in inequality but have also encouraged evasion of military service, which in the USSR, with rare exceptions, remained mandatory and was respected among all social strata. The Russian Federation stopped conscripting students (their number increased from 2.8 to 7.5 million between 1990 and 200825); conscription from large cities greatly decreased (e.g. Moscow’s share fell more than threefold), and the children of the wealthy virtually ceased serving in the army. In theearly 2000s, Ministry of Defense bureaucrats noted thatthe proportion of underweight conscripts (i.e. chronically malnourished) had risen to 15% from less than 2% in 1988.26 Considering that those serving under contract earned no more than the average Russian, service was primarily attractive to residents of underdeveloped regions and those without either higher education or a decent job. The Russian army thus became an army of the poor—as, incidentally, the Russian imperial army had always been.
25 — “Raskryty zarplaty rossijskih voennyh v Sirii” [Russian military salaries in Syria revealed], Lenta, May 18, 2020, available at: https://lenta.ru
26 — R. Ziangirov, “Profilaktika i metody korrekcii hirurgičeskih zabolevanij u mužčin-prizyvnikov v Respublike Baškortostan” [Prevention and methods of correction of surgical diseases in male conscripts in the Republic of Bashkortostan], Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Medicine, Ufa, 2004.
Secondly, the emergence of the new Russia coincided with a period of lawlessness and with amassive surge in crime—primarily murder and violent crime (the numbers only began to decline in the second half of the 2000s27). This development indicated not only a catastrophic devaluation of human life but also led to widespread glorification of killers and bandits28. At the same time, the state also began to turn into a mafia gang, trying not so much to defeat organized crime as to integrate it into various political structures, appropriating its functions, rhetoric, style, and even “morality”.29 Putin’s regime, on the one hand, has exempted and continues to exempt ever more groups of citizens (from the members of security forces to veterans of the Ukrainian war) from any obligation to comply with the law, and, on the other hand, has consistently expanded the boundaries of acceptable use of brutal force (here, it’s worth recalling the laws decriminalizing domestic violence30). A cult of force, an understanding of the conventionality of legal norms, and a sense of the cheapness of human life have spread throughout society—and all of the above have become an important basis for the formation of a mercenary army. (It should also be noted that the army itself in the new Russia was and remains an extremely corrupt institution, where honor and morality occupy the least important place; an illustration of this is the fact that dozens of people in the “inner circle” of former Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu have been charged with corruption and embezzlement31.)
27 — “Lihie nulevye. Issledovanie o tom, stalo li pri Vladimire Putine bezopasnee žit’” [The Dashing Noughties. A study on whether life has become safer under Vladimir Putin], Proekt, October 17, 2018, available at: www.proekt.media.
28 — A. Dolin, “Privlekatel’nost’ nasiliâ: kak ‘Brat-2’ povliâl na putinskuû ideologiû” [The appeal of violence: how “Brat2” influenced Putin’s ideology], Sakharov Review, December 7, 2024, available at: https://sakharov.world.
29 — M. Galeotti, “Inside Vladimir Putin’s ‘mafia state’”, The Economist, May 19, 2018, available at: www.economist.com; M. Mustaffa, “Russia: The mafia as the state”, Lowy Institute, August 31, 2023, available at: www.lowyinstitute.org.
30 — D. Barsegian, “Dekriminalizacii domašnego nasiliâ – pât’ let. Za èto vremâ vse stalo tol’ko huže?” [The decriminalization of domestic violence is five years old. In that time, have things only gotten worse?], Meduza, February 7, 2022, available at: https://meduza.io
31 — “Aresty v Minoborony” [Arrests at the Ministry of Defense], Kommersant, available at: www.kommersant.ru
Thirdly, and partly as a result of the first two trends, at a certain point the Russian leaders began to lean toward creating illegal formations under their tight control (the first of these were the “Slavic Corps” and the “Wagner PMC”–private military company),32 which perfectly combined the criminal elements of these structures themselves, the involvement of “castaways” seeking elevated salaries, and the state’s willingness to use them for its own purposes. Since 2013, private military companies have been deployed in Russian operations abroad, and were involved in Russia’s official involvement in Syria33 and in its covert intervention in Donbass34. These troops can well be considered prototypes of a full-scale mercenary army, which was only one step away—it was awaiting official recognition as an integral part of the Russian armed forces. This, as is well known, happened in the summer of 2022 when the Kremlin unofficially authorized Yevgeny Prigozhin’s “Wagner” to recruit prisoners and, in a completely illegal manner, provided pardons and expungements of criminal records to those who had served at the frontline for a certain period35. This contingent—at least until the end of the “partial mobilization”—was paid much more than the contract soldiers, with money which, as the Kremlin later admitted, comes from the Russian budget36. The only difference from the mercenary army was that these units were not formally put under the control of the Defense Ministry after Prigozhin’s death.
32 — P. Lechner, Death Is Our Business: Russian Mercenaries and the New Era of Private Warfare, Bloomsbury, London, 2025.
33 — “‘Slavânskij korpus’ vozvraŝaetsâ v Siriû” [“Slavonic corps” returns to Syria], Fontanka, October 16, 2015, available at: www.fontanka.ru.
34 — “Častnaâ armiâ dlâ prezidenta: istoriâ samogo delikatnogo poručeniâ Evgeniâ Prigožina” [A private army for the president: the story of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s most delicate assignment], The Bell, January 29, 2019, available at: https://thebell.io.
35 — J. Roffe, “ČVK Vagnera prinuditel’no nabiraet zaklûčennyh na vojnu” [Wagner PMC forcibly recruits prisoners for the war], Deutsche Welle, September 17, 2022, available at: www.dw.com.
36 — “Putin zaâvil, čto ‘ČVK Vagner’ polnost’û obespečivalas’ gosudarstvom” [Putin said that “PMC Wagner” was fully provided for by the state], RIA Novosti, June 27, 2023, available at: https://ria.ru.
As a result, by the time of the Ukraine invasion in 2022, the Russian army was a collection of three rather different elements: of conscripts (up to 240,000 men serving for just a single year with nominal pay), contract soldiers (approximately 510,000 men who signed contracts for 3–5 years with pay just slightly below the average Russian salary), and mercenaries (20,000–40,000 men who earned 3 to 5.5 times more than contract soldiers and enjoyed significant informal guarantees, including compensation in the event of injury or death). The war launched by Vladimir Putin had required some unification of the organization of troops, extending the principles of a mercenary army to almost all of them, except the conscripts. This most likely occurred as a result of a series of ad hoc decisions: first, because of the huge losses that reduced the number of contractors serving in the army at the time of the invasion; then because of the desire to increase the number of PMC participants, who were ready to go to the front only for a large reward; and, finally, in the last stage, because of the desire to placate those called up during the period of “partial mobilization”. The overall outcome of all these processes forever changed the shape of the Russian army. Soldiers have become one of the highest-paid social classes (“the young rich”, as Dmitry Belousov, brother of the current Defense Minister and the head of a pro-Kremlin economic center, calls them37), and at the same time, they have received special legal status, becoming a group “patronized” by the Kremlin. In other words, Russia has largely reproduced the very system it abandoned in the era of Peter the Great.
37 — “Ob èkonomičeskoj povestke na 2023-2026 gg.: problema ‘uzkih mest’ rosta” [On the economic agenda for 2023-2026: the problem of growth bottlenecks], Centr makroèkonomičeskogo analiza i kratkosročnogo prognozirovaniâ (CMAKP), June 2023, available at: www.forecast.ru.