An open-source analysis of Russian contract recruitment reports that Russian recruitment continues to decline as battlefield casualties rise, consistent with other indicators of Russian recruiting and manpower challenges that ISW has observed.
German Institute for International and Security Affairs economist Janis Kluge assessed on April 12 based on an analysis of the budgets of Russian federal subjects that Russian forces recruited between 800 and 1,000 soldiers a day in the first quarter of 2026 (between January 1 and March 31, 2026), compared to 1,000 to 1,200 a day in the first quarter of 2025, a 20 percent decrease year-over-year.
Kluge noted that regional increases in one-time signing bonuses failed to prevent slowing recruitment despite average signing bonuses reaching a record high of 1.47 million rubles (roughly $19,300) in March 2026. Kluge also assessed, based on Russian Finance Ministry data, that Russian authorities paid compensation to the families of around 25,000 killed Russian soldiers in the first quarter of 2026, compared to around 20,000 killed in the first quarter of 2025 and almost 10,000 in the first quarter of 2024. Kluge extrapolated these total compensation figures from data from 17 Russian federal subjects. ISW is unable to verify the underlying data and conclusions in Kluge’s analysis, but his conclusions are consistent with multiple other indicators that ISW has observed that Russia is increasingly suffering recruiting and manpower challenges, such as reported recruiting shortfalls relative to casualties, the commitment of strategic reserves, increased signing bonuses, and expanded covert mobilization efforts.
Ukraine’s “I Want to Live” initiative reported on April 6 that the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) recruited 940 soldiers a day for a total of roughly 80,456 in the first three months of 2026, fewer than the 1,100 to 1,150 soldiers a day that it would need to recruit to be on track to meet its 2026 recruiting target of 409,000 contract soldiers, and insufficient to replace the roughly 85,290 casualties that Ukrainian General Staff data indicates that Russian forces suffered during the same period.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reported that Russian forces have likely begun committing strategic reserves to the battlefield to compensate for mounting casualties and successful Ukrainian counterattacks in the Oleksandrivka and Hulyaipole directions as of April 10.
ISW has also observed reports that at least 12 Russian federal subjects increased signing bonuses by between 50 and 80 percent since mid-February 2026, and that Russian forces have also recently intensified their forced covert mobilization effort to businesses and universities.
