Russia's recruitment campaign loses steam in May

In 2025, the Russian military added over 1,000 new recruits per day. Most regions easily met their quotas and stopped increasing their sign-on bonuses. However, recruitment slowed down in May.

Quantifying Russian recruitment success can be quite frustrating. Especially when, after spending hours combing through Russian regional budgets, you conclude that: Dmitri Medvedev was right. In the case of recruitment statistics, however, the numbers he cites are not too far from what the budget data (both federal and regional) indicate.

On May 28, Medvedev stated that Russia had recruited 175,000 men thus far in 2025 (approximately 1,200 per day). When I checked the number of recruits from my model using regional budget data for January 1 thru May 27, I got a result of 175,440. Of course, this precision is mostly a coincidence. The model is designed to illustrate general trends over time, not precise recruitment totals. Estimates for total recruitment are merely extrapolations from 37 regions and only provide a rough estimate. Nevertheless, Medvedev’s recruitment figure appears credible, similar to his previous statements about recruitment in 2024. This is very much in contrast to everything else Medvedev says or tweets.

Source: Data from Russia’s Finance Ministry, own calculations.

The chart illustrates recent recruitment trends based on regional budget spending. Following a robust winter/spring campaign, recruitment declined in May.¹ After briefly reaching 1,400 per day in April, the data indicates that daily recruitment fell to 900 per day in recent weeks. There was also a decline in May of last year, but the data for early 2024 is less reliable (fewer regions offered sign-on bonuses), so it is unclear if this is a seasonal pattern. The decline could indicate that Russian regions are exerting less pressure on municipalities and businesses following successful recruitment efforts in the early months of the year. Another possible reason is that the “Trump boost” has ended.

Regional sign-on bonuses have stopped increasing

The average size of sign-on bonuses across the 37 regions in the dataset increased dramatically in 2024, but has plateaued at 1.1 million rubles in recent months. Only a few regions changed their bonus amounts; some increased them, while others decreased them. Apparently, further increases were unnecessary, as recruitment was quite successful. This prompted regional governments to become more budget-conscious. However, this may change in the summer. If the current downtrend in recruitment continues through June, bonuses will have to rise again. In a sense, the size of Russia’s average sign-on bonus is the best indicator of how well Russian recruitment is going.

Source: Regional decrees, official statements, press reports.

To better understand the mechanics of Russian recruitment, I tried to find more evidence that regions have quotas that depend mostly on population size (as I speculated in my first post on regional recruitment). Based on many different reports from Russian regional media, it’s seems pretty clear that the regions do have goals to achieve that are set by the Russian Defense Ministry. Farida Rustamova reported already in late 2023 that Moscow sets quotas for the regions.

Anecdotal evidence supports quota based on population

The regional news outlet 47news.ru (Leningrad Oblast) writes: “it’s no secret that each region received a quota that is proportional to its population”. Based on the actual pace of recruitment in different regions, my “rule of thumb” suggests that regions should recruit approximately one man per day for every 100,000 people, or about one man per quarter for every 1,000 people. There is some evidence from several regions that this estimate is close but perhaps a bit ambitious. The “rule of thumb” suggests a total of around 1,400 recruits per day. Meanwhile, Russia often mentioned recruitment goal of 400,000 per year equates to approximately 1,100 per day.

URA.ru (Urals) wrote in 2023 that Sverdlovsk Oblast had to recruit around 10,000 men from April to December 2023. The population of Sverdlovsk is around 4 million, so the “rule of thumb” would indicate 4,000 per quarter, or 12,000 as a goal for three quarters. Close enough. URA reported in April 2024 that Sverdlovsk was significantly underperforming its plan, a trend that regional budget data also appears to confirm. Beginning in May 2024, Sverdlovsk increased its bonus several times and is currently one of the regions that pays the most (2.5 million rubles, the second highest in the dataset). In the chart below, the “rule of thumb” is the dotted red line:

Source: Russia’s Finance Ministry, own calculations.

Some more examples:

According to the outlet SOTA, Moscow City was supposed to recruit 27,000 men in April-December of 2023. Based on 13 million official population, the “rule of thumb” would indicate 39,000 for three quarters. This may indicate that the recruitment target for the capital is a little more relaxed, given that the actual population of Moscow is probably a few million higher than the official number.

PenzaObzor writes that Penza Oblast was supposed to recruit 4,500 men in 2023. Penza Oblast has 1.2 million residents, so the “rule of thumb” would indicate 4,800 recruits for the full year, or 1,200 per quarter. The outlet Stolitsa58 (also from Penza) writes that Penza Oblast recruited 1,000 men in the first quarter of 2025.

Yuzhnaya Volna reports that Astrakhan recruited 1,500 men from March to July 2023, and that this represented 140% of the planned number. Astrakhan Oblast has one million residents, so the “rule of thumb” says that 1,000 men would be 100% for one quarter.

Tatar-Inform reports that Tatarstan recruited 12,000 men in the year 2024. The population of Tatarstan is four million, so the “rule of thumb” yields 12,000 as the regional quota for one year.

Komsomol’skaya Pravda reports that Kostroma Oblast recruited “over 600 men” in 2025 until April 12. The region’s population is 570,000, so according to the “rule of thumb” Kostroma has to recruit 570 men per quarter.

There was also one report on Tula Oblast where the number appears to be completely off - but it’s unclear why. Tul’skaya Pressa wrote that the region had to recruit “no less than 700 recruits” in 2025. With a population of 1.5 million, the “rule of thumb” would suggest a much higher number of 6,000 for Tula. Based on regional spending, the region recruited 1,483 men in the first quarter of 2025, which is closer to the “rule of thumb” (another case of accidental “precision” of the model) and indicates that there may be an issue with the report from Tul’skaya Pressa.

1. You may have noticed that recruitment for the first half of 2024 increased compared to earlier versions of this chart: I adapted the model to make the extrapolation a little bit more precise (for some months, data was unavailable, distorting the extrapolation - now, the extrapolation is based only on the part of Russia’s population for which there is actual data on a certain day).