During the first quarter of this year, about 70,500 people signed contracts with the Ministry of Defense of the aggressor country of the russian federation to participate in the war against Ukraine - this is about 20,000 people less than planned in moscow.
The Foreign Intelligence Service (FIS) of Ukraine has announced this on the Telegram channel, the Ukrainian News agency reports.
According to Ukrainian intelligence, from January to March, about 70,500 people signed contracts with the Ministry of Defense of the russian federation, although the agency was counting on 33,500-34,600 people per month.
During the first quarter of 2025, about 1,200 people were enrolled in the army every day. Currently, this figure is 800-930 people per day, which is 1,100-1,150 people below the plan.
The kremlin is trying to solve this problem. The first thing that was done was to increase lump-sum payments. Most regions of the russian federation increased them by 30-100%, and some by 200-500%. Ordinary russians are paying for this, since the regions were forced to reduce spending on social and communal services.
The State Duma also adopted a law on writing off overdue loans. Now it is written off not only to a contract military, but also to a wife or husband. The maximum amount of writing off is USD 136,000. This is happening against the background of the fact that at the beginning of 2026, the amount of overdue debt on unsecured loans reached USD 22.6 billion, and the number of enforcement proceedings against individuals exceeded 25 million.
"All these measures taken together paint a pessimistic picture for Moscow. A voluntary contract is becoming more and more expensive in the literal sense - both for budgets and for the social sphere of the regions. The debt bait has its limits: it is impossible to increase payments indefinitely, and the regions have already gone deep into the red," the report says.
The FIS emphasized that open mobilization in the russian federation remains an unlikely scenario for the time being, since the kremlin fears its consequences. However, if the pace of voluntary recruitment of soldiers falls, this issue will remain less and less hypothetical.
As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, on May 4, the commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces, Robert "Madyar" Brovdi, said that the losses of the russian army have exceeded the level of recruitment of contract soldiers for the fifth month in a row.
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