New data: Russia recruited 89,601 men in the first quarter of 2025
According to federal budget data released today, Russia awarded bonuses for 89,601 new army contracts from January to March of 2025, marking a 22% surge compared to the same period in 2024.
The flurry of new budget data may be confusing. To clarify: Today, the Russian Finance Ministry published detailed spending data for the first quarter of 2025. Some data on Q1 was previously available in an attachment to Russia’s budget amendment law, but it was less detailed. Most importantly, it did not include data on sign-on bonuses.
The good news, from the analyst’s perspective, is that: Russia still publishes the budget line on bonus spending, it didn’t even change the budget code of it. For army contracts, 35.7 billion rubles were spent in Q1. For National Guard contracts, which also come with bonuses of 400,000 rubles, 168 million rubles were spent. The total amount spent, 35.8 billion rubles, is equivalent to 89,601 bonus payments.
The data confirms regional budget data and statements by Russian officials, showing that Russian recruitment continued to be successful in the first quarter. Recruitment increased by 22% from the first quarter of 2024 (from 73366 to 89601 men). In theory, federal data should be more reliable than regional budget data because it is more comprehensive and the calculations are simpler, with fewer assumptions involved. The next batch of federal budget data will be published some time in September.
It's just that there are thousands of ghost soldiers and the officials are stuffing their own pockets with the bonuses of the troops who exist only on the paper. Here goes russian terrorist state's "successful recruitment campaign".
Do you have a link to the financial data you can share?