Rate of Recruitment of Contract Soldiers Declines in Russia

In 2025, the rate of recruitment of contract soldiers for military service in Russia declined significantly.

In particular, in large cities such as Moscow, the number of recruits fell by approximately 25% compared to the previous year. This is stated in an analysis by the Verstka media.

The decline in the flow of volunteers is happening even despite the simplification of medical requirements for candidates. Even with the relaxed criteria, fewer people are willing to sign a contract.

Most new recruits are poorly motivated and do not fully understand the nature of military service. Many of them are people who have lost their jobs or have social and psychological problems.

Among those who sign contracts, the proportion of older people — aged 45 to 55 and above — is increasing.

Many of them choose to serve because of financial difficulties or a lack of alternative opportunities.

Medical requirements for candidates have been significantly reduced. Service is now available even to people with certain chronic diseases and psychiatric diagnoses.

One reason for the decline in recruitment is the population’s high level of war fatigue.

As a result, Russia is recruiting fewer and lower-quality recruits, relying on socially vulnerable groups and those who have no other employment options.

The example of Moscow

In 2025, 24,469 people were sent to war through Moscow, a quarter less than a year earlier.

At the end of the summer of 2024, the Russian capital introduced a payment of 1.9 million rubles, after which the flow of people willing to go to war increased sharply.

In August 2024, 5,370 people signed contracts, and in September, 6,940, which were record numbers.

But by November, the numbers had returned to approximately average values — about 2,600 people per month. And in the winter of 2025, a particularly noticeable decline became apparent.

“There is an objective fact: the flow has significantly decreased, and the influx that was observed earlier is definitely gone. We are making efforts to attract the maximum number of candidates from the existing flow,” a source in the mayor’s office says.

In 2025, according to the media’s interlocutors, the decline in interest in contract service became particularly noticeable at the end of the year — in December, only 879 people signed contracts in Moscow. According to the source, this is the lowest figure since the office began operating, although the interlocutor does not have statistics for 2023.

“There is a significant negative growth. There are always few people in December, but now the situation is really bad.” Both sources attribute the decline to the fact that Russians are tired of the war, and those who really wanted to go to the front have long since done so. “All kinds of trash are going,” is how one of the publication’s sources describes the situation.

According to Verstka’s sources in the presidential administration who are familiar with the contract data, the shortfall in 2025 was recorded countrywide, and the figures are significantly lower than those announced by Putin and Medvedev.