Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
As Russia is heading into the fifth winter of its war in Ukraine, the Russian Ministry of Defense wants to make a move not seen since 2008.
The federal budget has carried the fight for nearly five years, and the strain is now showing up inside the Defense Ministry itself. Moscow is preparing to break a payment habit that has held for at least 18 years.
The ministry has drafted an order that would push December salary payments for most service members back to January 11-21 of the following year, according to the independent Russian outlet Verstka. Under current rules, December pay is deposited by December 25.
Verstka said the draft would take effect this year if adopted in its current form, and that official records going back to at least 2008 show December pay has consistently been handed out before year-end. The reporting was carried onward by Novaya Gazeta Europe.
There is one carve-out. Members of the Joint Group of Forces fighting in Ukraine would still be paid under the old schedule, meaning the delay falls on garrison troops, support units, and personnel outside the combat zone.
Verstka reported that the ministry has not published any explanation for the proposed change.
Regions cut survivor benefits
The pay delay surfaces as Russian regions quietly reduce what they hand to the families of soldiers killed or wounded in Ukraine.
In Ulyanovsk, the regional lump-sum payment to the family of a killed soldier was halved in February 2026, from one million to 500,000 rubles, and then dropped again in April to just 50,000 rubles, a 95 percent cut from the original figure, Meduza documented in a feature on regional war budgets.
Saratov region cut its own payment in late September 2026, moving it from one million rubles to 100,000.
Similar reductions have been reported in Kemerovo, Omsk, and Bashkortostan over the course of 2026, as regions absorb more of the fiscal cost of the war while federal defense spending keeps rising.
Russia’s draft 2027 budget directs nearly half of federal spending to defense and security, according to Euronews reporting on the bill.
