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Different Scenarios Are Being Discussed, Up to Reservist Rotation and Mobilization

As Russia’s contract-soldier pipeline falters, the strain on the front is pushing officials toward ever more desperate recruitment schemes and discussions of reservist rotation or a new mobilization.

«Дураки за деньги закончились»: как российские власти пытаются решить проблему нехватки контрактников

Vyorstka · By Редакция «Вёрстки · 24 June 2026 · read the original in Russian →

Обсуждают разные сценарии — вплоть до ротации резервистов и мобилизации

Different scenarios are being discussed, up to the rotation of reservists and mobilization.

России все сложнее набирать новых контрактников и удерживать захваченные территории. В Москве поток новобранцев весной обвалился на треть, такая же тенденция в регионах. Взволнованные, власти продолжают наращивать реферальные выплаты за контрактников, а в кулуарах ходят слухи о ротации резервистов и новой мобилизации.

Russia is finding it increasingly difficult to recruit new contract soldiers and hold captured territories. In Moscow, the flow of new recruits collapsed by a third in the spring, and the same trend is visible in the regions. Alarmed, the authorities continue to raise referral payments for contract soldiers, while behind the scenes rumors circulate about rotating reservists and a new mobilization.

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This report was prepared with the participation of Important Stories.

The Flow of Contract Soldiers Has CollapsedПоток контрактников обвалился

There are fewer and fewer Russians signing contracts with the Defense Ministry and heading off to the “special military operation.” This is shown by data obtained by Vyorstka. In spring 2026, the flow of new recruits fell by a third compared with the same period in 2025.

In April, Moscow sent 1,708 contract soldiers to the front; in May, 1,378. That is a thousand fewer than last year and comparable to 2024 levels, when the capital had not yet introduced million-ruble payments for signing a contract with the Defense Ministry. In June 2026, according to a Vyorstka source in the Moscow mayor’s office, the downward trend continued.

“Things are steadily fucked on our end: few people are coming, and even fewer are motivated. But we’re not losing heart, because from what I understand we’re still not in the worst shape by national standards. So we keep working,” a Vyorstka source in the mayor’s office says.

Notably, at the very beginning of 2026 the flow of recruits had, on the contrary, been growing, against the backdrop of peace talks involving the United States and expectations of a ceasefire. Many applicants spoke of wanting to “jump into the last carriage” — to get several million rubles before combat operations were frozen. By the end of February, however, it had become clear that no swift end to the fighting should be expected.

“A lot of people really did believe the war would end any day now, and that this was a chance to jump into the last carriage and rake in some cash. But something went wrong,” Vyorstka’s interlocutor in the Moscow mayor’s office explains.

The situation in the capital is even worse when it comes to the flow of contract soldiers into Rubicon, a UAV detachment where contracts are signed for one year with no subsequent extension. When recruitment was first announced, there was a very large influx, but the strict requirements screened almost everyone out. Vyorstka’s interlocutors could not provide exact figures. But according to them, those who have now signed contracts with Rubicon make up roughly a third of the total flow.

“As for UAVs, it’s clear the requirements there are very strict. We have few such people. There are few such people left in general! A very large number of problematic candidates,” says a Vyorstka interlocutor who oversees contract recruitment in Moscow.

The quality of the new recruits is also deteriorating, Vyorstka’s interlocutors acknowledge. This began last year. As one source who works with candidates puts it, “he used to be a patriot, but now he has looked at the Russian people and is as unpatriotic as can be.”

According to sources, the situation in Moscow reflects the picture across the country. One high-ranking Vyorstka interlocutor, who serves in a military unit in Siberia, said that the flow of people wishing to sign contracts continues to shrink.

“The decline began about two years ago, but now the numbers have reached a minimum. At the same time, no one has canceled the recruitment plan: new recruits have to be sent every month.”

This is confirmed by a source in the military enlistment office of the same region. According to him, recruiters used to come to them instead, because in a large, remote, and fairly poor region far from Moscow there were many people willing to fight. “Right now the flow is being increased mainly through the cops,” he said, referring to the practice of offering detainees and suspects a contract in exchange for charges being dropped and no police report being filed. A source working on recruitment in Lipetsk region says the same thing.

It was not possible to obtain specific figures for other regions. But there are other data that may indirectly indicate a decline in the flow of new recruits: federal budget expenditures, for example.

Across Russia, contract recruitment in the fourth quarter of 2025 fell by one and a half times compared with the same period the previous year, according to calculations by Important Stories based on federal budget spending data.

The pace of recruitment continued to decline at the start of 2026. According to Janis Kluge, a researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs of the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, 800 to 1,000 people were signing contracts each day in the first quarter of this year, 20 percent fewer than in the same period last year.

Problems at the FrontПроблемы на фронте

According to soldiers interviewed by Vyorstka, the new contract soldiers who arrived in 2026 are mostly “incapable of fighting.” “I can see it from the contingent: these are people who are mostly being taken, not people going of their own accord,” one mobilized soldier tells Vyorstka. “Some are taken from prison, some from the street. Homeless people in the literal sense. Criminals, and already at such an age and with such illnesses that they can barely stand. Faces like the ones hanging around cheap bars, lying in the streets until recently. They’re a burden on everyone. What can you even teach them? They can’t even walk in kit; it’s hard for them to carry 20 kilograms. They’re single-use.”

“Or recently they brought in about ten Black guys, but they quickly ran out at the positions,” Vyorstka’s interlocutor continues. “New contract soldiers don’t live longer than a month unless they land somewhere through connections.”

Among the surviving newcomers, half immediately flee the front, the same Vyorstka source claims. To back this up, he sends 19 questionnaires for servicemen who have gone AWOL: “Those are only the ones we were told about in a week. And we’re just one tiny settlement near the line of contact. Across the whole line of contact in a week, I think there are a great many, hundreds.”

“It’s as if the people have run out,” the mobilized soldier continues. “You can see it very clearly in our regiment: units are staffed at 30 percent, 40 percent at best. Separate companies — snipers, commandant’s units, air-defense troops, guards, the armored group — are being disbanded, leaving 15 to 30 people instead of 60 to 80. Those freed up are driven into the infantry through a three-day training ground course and after this ‘training’ sent straight into assaults and holding operations. They send them out two at a time, in pairs. A guy from my platoon lost his leg there right away, literally the day after he was transferred.”

Some of those who signed contracts in 2026, another soldier says, have already managed to be wounded, captured, returned to Russia during a prisoner exchange with Ukraine, and are now in a hospital near Kaliningrad waiting to be sent back to the front. “Three months was enough for all of it,” Vyorstka’s interlocutor adds.

“A friend of mine went on a bender and yesterday, drunk, dragged himself to the enlistment office… I really hope he sobered up today and manages to get out of the contract,” one mobilized soldier serving in the rear tells Vyorstka when asked who was signing contracts with the Defense Ministry in 2026 and what happened to them. “I’ve already lost another friend. He had a fight with his wife and went there drunk, then sobered up, tried to get out of it, and couldn’t; a couple of months later he was cargo 200. Three children left behind.”

All of this, of course, affects the course of combat operations. Here, for instance, is what one contract soldier now on the Kharkiv axis says:

“We’ve been fighting over 300 square meters somewhere since January, the same old artillery ping-pong as always, a lot of wounded and dead. This is the buffer zone, Kharkiv is ahead. We’re barely holding this territory. There isn’t enough of anything: people, shells, birds. We’re eating animal feed. Everything is hard,” Anton says.

“Four of our men were captured in Kherson. They surrendered not to a person but to drones,” says another contract soldier, who went on leave in May. “There are so many drones that you can’t approach and you can’t drive up, so you have to lie through your teeth.”

According to Vyorstka’s interlocutor, there are 15 to 20 “actually combat-capable men” in an assault company, while reports list 80 to 90. Vyorstka was unable to confirm this information with another source. “And under that pretext they are assigned completely impossible tasks, so people just go one way, with no options. They hide everything… Losses, the wounded, surrendered territory, destroyed equipment, logistics problems… Everything in general. Total lying! We are simply being disposed of in this strange military operation.”

According to military analysts, in the first half of 2026 the pace of Russia’s advance at the front slowed substantially. At the start of the year Russian forces were still taking new territory, albeit locally, but by spring the front line had effectively stabilized on many axes. ISW reported that in March Russian forces captured only about 23 square kilometers, the lowest figure since autumn 2023, while on some sectors Ukrainian units even managed to retake previously lost positions.

The DeepState project reported that May saw Russia’s smallest territorial gains in several years. Against this backdrop, more and more analysts characterize the situation at the front as a phase of positional warfare in which neither side is capable of achieving major operational breakthroughs.

Judging by their conversations with Vyorstka, gloom and irritation now prevail among mobilized soldiers and experienced contract assault troops to a degree not seen at the beginning of 2026.

“All the guys are very tense and irritable. There have been a lot of written refusals to take part in combat missions; they don’t court-martial people for that, they send them to other units, the ones where the special contingent serves,” the mobilized soldier says. Previously, soldiers who refused to carry out a combat mission were usually either threatened with “nullification” or “nullified”; judging by sources’ accounts, the practice of written refusals is new, and Vyorstka does not have such documents in its possession.

“In general, the absolute majority, to put it very mildly, have become disillusioned with our government and with specific people,” the soldier continues. “I think you understand who I mean. This is already hatred, though not yet rage, but that is where everything is heading. Honestly, I fear for the country; very sad times come to mind, like the collapse of the USSR.”

How They Are Looking for ResourcesКак ищут ресурсы

Problems at the front and the difficulty of recruiting new contract soldiers are forcing the authorities to search desperately for new solutions. For the most part, this falls to regional administrations.

A senior officer serving in a military unit in Siberia tells Vyorstka that “literally all the villages around here have already been scraped clean” for contract soldiers, and now the Defense Ministry is sending military personnel to recruit people in other regions.

“There are almost no willing people left in the city. So now our girls — the agitation brigade — have gone to Dagestan. And that’s despite the fact that new contract soldiers are paid more.” According to Vyorstka’s source, the “agitation brigade” gave concerts in the Caucasus republic and urged all local residents to sign contracts.

In addition, the military are being given KPIs for the number of trips “beyond the ribbon” by those who serve permanently in the region. “Since there’s not much else we can do to help, our orchestra is now going to Luganda. Purely so they can report on business trips, though what the hell they need it there for, when they have other needs, I have no idea,” Vyorstka’s interlocutor says.

Some regions and state structures are raising referral payments for contract recruiters to record levels. In 2026, average monthly regional spending on payments to recruiters more than doubled compared with the previous year, from 358 million to 802 million rubles a month, Important Stories calculated on the basis of reports on the execution of regional budgets. Such bonuses can be received by ordinary people as well as by staff of military enlistment offices, local administrations, and even security officers involved in recruitment. In total, the regions have already paid recruiters at least 7.7 billion rubles.

They are trying to motivate volunteers with “promotions,” offering higher payments if a contract is signed before a certain date. When Tyumen region raised the payment for soldiers without experience to 3 million rubles, the number of inquiries immediately doubled, the region’s military commissar Sergei Chirkov boasted.

At the same time, Russians are being quite literally lured into the war under the guise of rear-area vacancies. Candidates are offered service as drivers, guards, and builders. In reality, however, the men have no guarantees of such assignments: they sign contracts on general terms, and commanders of units and training centers handle their placement.

Recently, advertisements for vacancies “in the rear of the special military operation” have even appeared in China and Belarus. Vyorstka found such ads on Avito. The vacancies often seek people of any citizenship, including those “over 45,” pensioners, and people “with health impairments” — fitness categories from A to G, that is, up to and including “temporarily unfit” — with no experience and no military ID, but with an expunged conviction or a suspended sentence.

“No deployments to ‘hot spots’ or the line of combat contact. Why Belarus: a stable environment, developed infrastructure, proximity to home for many citizens. Service takes place on the territory of the Union State with all guarantees and payments from the Russian Defense Ministry,” the recruiters note.

The ads offer 10 million rubles in “signing money” of unclear origin, debt write-offs of up to 10 million rubles, and benefits for the family. They also offer full payment of travel to the place of service, accommodation in dormitories or barracks, as well as food and equipment.

Exactly the same terms appear in an ad seeking an “ammunition production worker” in China. The place of work is described as a “quiet rear zone” with developed infrastructure and under guard.

Another attempt by recruiters to obtain more contract soldiers for the Defense Ministry is to advertise a vacancy for a “peacekeeper.”

No such position exists in the armed forces, but in 2026 ads appeared on the same Avito recruiting “peacekeepers” for the combat zone in Ukraine.

Employers with accounts called “We Are Where We Are Needed,” “Contract with the Defense Ministry,” “Government,” and others offer work “in the rear,” “in the special military operation,” and in occupied regions of Ukraine: Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kherson regions. Some vacancy descriptions state directly that the job involves signing a contract with the Defense Ministry. In others, the work is described as “assistance to the civilian population,” “maintenance of public order,” “patrolling in safe zones,” and “without participation in combat operations.”

A Vyorstka correspondent, posing as an applicant, contacted one of the recruiters. The man, who introduced himself as Denis, could not immediately explain what exactly a “peacekeeper” would do. At first he said he could offer “absolutely everything involved in the special military operation,” several thousand positions, “from clerk to shitter.” But then he did explain the details.

“It’s a person who has come in peace, to help people, not to climb up to the front line, to do different kinds of work: dig something out, unload something, build a dugout, work as a storekeeper, something connected with peace; it doesn’t necessarily mean killing there, trenches, assault rifles,” the recruiter said.

As Vyorstka has previously written, people who sign such contracts are often transferred to assault brigades in the very first months or weeks of service.

Will There Be Mobilization?

Among the options for solving the shortage of contract soldiers, the authorities are also discussing more radical measures, up to and including a new wave of mobilization. Eight sources who work with the presidential administration, as well as interlocutors in military enlistment offices and a source close to the FSB, told Vyorstka and Important Stories about rumors and possible preparations for this.

The interlocutors had heard about a possible mobilization in autumn 2026, in October after the elections, but stressed that “no decision has been made on this issue.”

“The reason, in my view, is that everything is not going quite as planned. And people involved in the process have started getting creative,” explains a source close to the Kremlin’s domestic policy bloc in the presidential administration. “It is unclear what mobilization would radically change, apart from mobilizing protest and crashing the economy,” he adds.

Another of his colleagues confirms that he has heard about different “types of road maps for filling out the army,” in which mobilization is one scenario. “But all of this is at the level of rumors. People are talking about it a lot, supposedly something could already begin in October,” he adds.

Another interlocutor who works for the Kremlin has also heard that such a decision is being discussed, but says “there is a sense of lack of will.” “In the spring there was specifically no political preparation, but there are more than enough reasons for this decision: the failure of the offensive, the loss of the initiative, the impotence of air defense,” he says.

An interlocutor in United Russia doubts that they will, in the end, decide on mobilization: “The situation at the front is difficult, but the risks with mobilization are obvious. I don’t believe in that decision.”

Two more sources in the leadership of two large Russian regions told Vyorstka that they consider possible mobilization to be rumor. “Everything is fine with recruitment in our region. I think these are pre-election rumors from Western opponents: they want to frighten people before the Duma elections,” suggested an interlocutor in the leadership of a Russian region.

A Vyorstka interlocutor close to one of the European intelligence services considers mobilization in Russia one of the “hypothetical harsh measures.”

“Putin does not want to end the war and is prepared to fight for another two or three years. There are fears of instability if combat operations end now, as things stand, without serious successes. Harsh measures are being worked through: mobilization and a war economy. The military are allegedly guaranteeing him full control over four Ukrainian regions if manpower is available.”

Details of a possible mobilization are provided by an interlocutor who oversees contract recruitment at one of Russia’s state corporations. According to him, preparatory measures “for what will never be called mobilization” have been under way “for several months already,” and “they are trying to take into account the mistakes of 2022 [mobilization].”

The interlocutor claims that “starting in October” the military will be ready to take tens of thousands of people for accelerated training at ranges and then “distribute them to active forces” in such batches. He did not name the exact number of new fighters needed at the front from the military’s and the Kremlin’s point of view, but said that “from beyond the ribbon they are constantly complaining about an acute shortage of people.” “They will have to hurry to meet the needs,” he clarified. Asked whether the decision on a new intake into the forces had been made final, Vyorstka’s interlocutor could not answer: “Our task is to prepare.” Vyorstka was unable to obtain other confirmations of his words.

An interlocutor who works with the media agenda in the presidential administration speaks of a calmer option for replenishing the forces: rotating reservists.

“The rotation of reservists who are currently involved in rear support is being discussed; these are people without much training. Some of them could be transferred into active units, and part of the reserve would be replenished with new arrivals,” the source explained. In this way, some mobilized soldiers could be returned to the rear, replaced by reservists — or even demobilized altogether. The source did not specify exactly how the reserve would be replenished.

Another source working in the administration of a region in the Central Federal District said there would be “no emergency recruitment drive.” “The situation at the front is not such that, as in 2022, you can plug a hole with just anyone holding a rifle. Such people would not survive there for even a few minutes now. Training is needed, and at least some basic abilities and knowledge on the part of those being trained. You can’t lure those people with a carrot, so — you understand,” he sighs.

One of the mobilized soldiers who spoke with Vyorstka disagrees. He is certain there will be a second wave of mobilization. “In general, by logic, mobilization should happen, and I’m sure it will happen after the September sham elections. But there is another option, a less realistic one: that they will still reach some kind of agreement.

“There are no people here, the fools who would go for money have run out,” the soldier says. “So it’s either mobilization, or some backroom deal with a loss of ‘face’ and the unfulfilled conditions and goals of the special military operation. I think the choice here is obvious, isn’t it?”

Infographic: El. Cover: Dmitry Osinnikov.Инфографика: Эль Обложка: Дмитрий Осинников

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