Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
Additionally, hundreds of workers at a shipbuilding plant has gone without pay for two months now.
Russia’s financial model for sustaining its war in Ukraine is showing growing signs of strain, with regions struggling to keep pace with promised payments to enlisted soldiers.
The incentives, long used to drive contract recruitment without a nationwide draft, are increasingly colliding with deepening fiscal pressures.
And now, a region has halted enlistment payments alltogether.
Payments suspended
In Yakutia, one of Russia’s largest and least populated regions, officials confirmed that enlistment payments have been halted, Express reports.
The region’s finance minister, Ivan Alekseev, acknowledged the freeze in a recent television interview, saying, “Unfortunately, we really have this situation.”
Local programmes had offered up to 2.6 million rubles ($33,000 / £25,000) per contract, along with additional compensation for injuries or deaths.
Those funds come from a mix of federal, regional and municipal sources — an arrangement now proving hard to sustain.
Widespread cutbacks
Data from Russian budget reports show that regional authorities were carrying a combined deficit of more than 724 billion rubles by late September.
In October, administrations in Tatarstan, Chuvashia, Orenborg, Mari El and Belgorod cut enlistment benefits, while some regions scrapped extra bonuses altogether.
Mounting financial stress
For years, Moscow leaned on high payouts to lure recruits from poorer parts of the country.
According to Russian regional authorities, many of the men signing contracts come from remote and economically depressed areas, far from major urban centres.
That strategy is now under pressure, as regional governments are wrestling with expanding deficits, and officials across the country say they can no longer guarantee the financial support initially offered to soldiers and their families.
Defense behind on its payments
Financial troubles are also rippling through the defence sector. Roughly 850 employees at the Yaroslavl Shipbuilding Plant, a major military shipbuilder, have gone nearly two months without wages after the Defence Ministry failed to transfer funds.
The plant, constrained by Western sanctions since 2019, builds landing and patrol vessels and is emblematic of wider production problems — from labour shortages to missing components.
Sources: Express, RadioFreeEurope, The Moscow Times, TVP World, The New Voice of Ukraine
