In the Second Quarter of 2025, 37,900 Russians Signed Contracts with the Defense Ministry — 2.5 Times Fewer Than a Year Ago
The pace of contract recruitment has fallen to its lowest in two years
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In the second quarter of 2025, 37,900 people received payments for signing contracts with the Russian Defense Ministry. This follows from federal budget expenditure data reviewed by IStories.
Compared to the same period in 2024, the number of recruits joining the Russian Armed Forces fell by 2.5 times — at that time, 92,800 people received contract signing payments.
Taking into account data on recruitment for the first quarter, a total of 127,500 people received contract signing payments in the first six months of 2025. In the same period of 2024, 166,200 people received one-time payments.
Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev claimed that 210,000 new contract soldiers joined the Russian Armed Forces in the first half of 2025. This is 1.6 times higher than what federal budget expenditure data shows. Figures announced by the authorities have previously exceeded calculations based on one-time payment data, but the discrepancy was not as significant.
The number of new recruits in the second quarter of 2025 dropped to its lowest in two years: fewer people joined the Russian Armed Forces only in the same period of 2023, when Russia had just begun its active campaign to attract contract soldiers with money.
The exact reasons for the decline are unclear. In particular, the assessment of Janis Kluge, a research fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, does not show a drop. According to his calculations, 191,000 people may have signed contracts in the first six months of 2025 — one and a half times more than indicated by federal data. This estimate is based on information about contract signing payments from regional budgets and allows for real-time assessment of recruitment rates. Data is available for 37 regions and extrapolated to all of Russia.
Some regions have reported problems with contract recruitment. For example, the authorities of Irkutsk Oblast have been unable to meet their recruitment targets for the Russian Armed Forces due to a lack of funds to increase contract signing payments, reported the media People of Baikal. Authorities in Vladimir Oblast stopped reporting the number of new recruits sent to the front, although they had done so regularly since 2023. In early July, the region increased the one-time payment for signing a contract.