Can Russia still recruit 30,000 new soldiers per month?

I’m traveling this week and I don’t have much spare time, so this newsletter will probably be fairly short. But I want to mention something that has recently received attention among some Russian military analysts, namely the Russian manpower situation.

A number that has been mentioned a lot is that the Russian military is able to recruit about 30,000 volunteers every month. This number was originally stated by former Russian President (and now drunk trashposter on social media) Dmitry Medvedev, and it has later been repeated by other Russian officials including President Putin. But interestingly, the British intelligence services also announced that they consider this number to be accurate, and that the Russians are indeed able to recruit 30,000 new soldiers every month for the war in Ukraine.

It seems like a fairly reasonable number given that the Russians have been able to replace their losses and even increase the total number of soldiers that they have deployed in Ukraine. A year ago, there was a lot of talk about the need for a new Russian wave of mobilization because their losses were staggering, and few people believed that the number of volunteers would be that high. But we have not seen a mobilization wave in Russia, and indeed the Russians are still fighting. So they have definitely been able to recruit more efficiently than most observers – including myself – thought would be possible.

Are these numbers still valid?

But recently we’ve seen a bit of skepticism among Russian military analysts about whether or not this is still an accurate number. Most notably, the military analyst Ruslan Leviev has been puzzled about why Western analysts keep repeating that 30,000 volunteers join the Russian army every month. As he sees it, it is possible that Russia was able to recruit numbers like that last year, but there are several indications that it is not the case anymore.

First, the bonuses that people get for signing up for the Army are increasing. By Russian standards you will get a very good salary for joining the Army, and in many places you also get a significant sign-up bonus. That was the case already last year, but when the bonuses and salaries are increasing now, then that indicates that is harder for the government to find volunteers.

And secondly, there are more and more stories about how conscript soldiers are being forced to sign contracts. It is still the case in Russia the conscripts are not used for the war in Ukraine, but conscription is one of the most important recruitment pipelines for the Russian military. Many of the volunteers are conscripts that are approaching the end of their service and sign a contract to prolong their time in the military. But there are many stories about how these conscripts are essentially forced to sign contracts so they can be deployed to Ukraine. If a conscript refuses to sign the contract, they will be exposed to various forms of punishment until they change their mind. This also indicates that it is getting harder for the Russian government to find volunteers, so they resort to practices where they pressure people into the military but still can uphold an illusion of voluntary recruitment.

And thirdly, there are more and more reports about how Russia is recruiting soldiers from other countries. The Ukrainians are reporting that they encounter more and more soldiers from African countries on the battlefield, and Russia have reportedly recruited 15,000 Nepalis to fighting in Ukraine. These people don’t understand the language or the military tactics in the Russian units so they are hardly dream soldiers for the Russian commanders. The fact that the Russians put effort into recruiting these people indicates that they have a hard time getting enough from their own population to sign up.

Russia’s resources are not unlimited

It is difficult to say how many soldiers the Russian military is able to recruit at this point, but it definitely is possible that the 30,000 figure is outdated. And at the very least, it is wrong to say that it is 30,000 volunteers, because a significant number of them are not there voluntarily.

The debate about the Russian recruitment numbers is an important reminder that trends in warfare are temporary, and that we should be careful when using figures of past performance to predict future developments. Just because Russia was able to replace the losses in 2023, we cannot assume that they will also be able to do so in 2024.

But we can say with a high degree of certainty that the Russian ability to raise manpower is not unlimited. As the war continues, it will gradually get harder and harder for them to find people that are willing to sign a contract. And as that happens, the price of new soldiers will go up. The Russian government will need higher and higher bonuses to motivate people to sign a contract, and they will have to explore increasingly expensive avenues to find alternative sources of recruitment. And there are perhaps some signs that this is what is happening now.

That does not mean, of course, that Russia will run out of soldiers. But it does mean that Russia is spending more money on a very expensive recruitment system, and it is an open question how long it will be sustainable for them to do so. Eventually they might have to resort to more direct mobilization of Russian men, but Putin is clearly prepared to spend a lot of money to delay that decision.