Of men, Sergei Choigou wants 30% more. On December 21, the Russian Minister of Defense announced that the number of soldiers in the country would be extended to 1.5 million, as the conflict in Ukraine got bogged down despite the “partial” mobilization decreed by Vladimir Poutine in September. So, to recruit and hope to send some of these fighters to the areas annexed by the Kremlin, the state multiplies the compensations.
The last installation dates from Thursday, December 29. The Russian government has issued a decree by President Vladimir Putin on “the specifics” of the rules of the fight against corruption “for certain citizens during the special military operation”, in the occupied territories of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia. According to this text, the military, police and members of the security services operating in Ukraine, as well as other civil servants sent there, no longer have “the obligation to provide information on their income, expenses, property “.
The measure, which also applies to the “spouses and minor children” of the persons concerned, is retroactive from February 24, 2022, the date of the start of the offensive in Ukraine. In addition, those concerned now have the right to receive “rewards and donations”, if the latter are “of a humanitarian nature” and “have been received in connection with participation in the military operation” in Ukraine. A form of right to the spoils of war, which raises fears of an increase in corruption in the Russian army.
This new provision is part of the Kremlin’s incentive measures to push the Russians to leave to fight in Ukraine, while the mobilization is very unpopular in Russia. Hundreds of thousands of men are said to have fled the country to avoid being called up. At the same time, more and more testimonies are filtering out as to the fate of conscripts, sometimes left to their own devices on the battlefield. Reports of battles evoked, as early as August 2022, demoralized, depleted Russian troops, lacking equipment.
The government then implemented significant benefits, ranging from the promise of significant bonuses, banking and real estate facilities, to financial aid to families in the event of death or injury… Soldiers mobilized in Ukraine, for example, receive a bonus of 300,000 rubles (4,900 euros), if it does not take long to be paid. Many Russians reported in the media not to have received this amount of money.
In the event of the death of the spouse, compensation of more than 5 million rubles (81,000 euros) is promised to the family, or about 100 times the average monthly salary, according to the Moscow Times. Some of these benefits are only promised to married couples. So much so that some would formalize their relationship in order to ensure these compensations, according to the Moscow Times. The number of marriages has thus increased by 60% in several regions.
More original, but revealing the risk incurred by the troops, citizens mobilized in Ukraine will also have the right to have their sperm frozen in cryobanks for free, the state agency TASS reported on Wednesday. According to national media, an increase in demand for this type of service was observed in Russia in October, a few weeks after the mobilization was announced.
“In the past, it was people with chronic conditions who were the main customers. Now it’s healthy men who freeze their sperm, in case something happens to them, so they have the guaranteed opportunity to become fathers,” tweeted a BBC reporter in Russia, Steve Rosenberg. According to US intelligence, 100,000 soldiers were killed or injured during the war in Ukraine. A deserter or a soldier refusing to take part in combat is liable to a ten-year prison sentence in Russia.
