Moscow has turned to calling on volunteers from neighboring countries to boost their numbers in Ukraine, a new assessment shows.
The Ministry of Defense said on Sunday morning that since late June Russia had been “using job advertisements to lure citizens of neighboring countries such as Kazakhstan and Armenia to fight in Ukraine”.
The 18-month war has seen heavy casualties on both sides, but Russian authorities have so far been reluctant to launch a full-scale popular mobilization. In mid-September 2022, the Kremlin announced a partial mobilization of some 300,000 reservists, but has not launched another mobilization since then.
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Introducing a new mobilization order would prove to be an unpopular move as Moscow has sought to distance itself from the Russian population and its “special military operation” it has been conducting since February 2022.
However, Moscow has been courting ethnic Russians in the Kostanay region of northern Kazakhstan, where ads have appeared, as well as in Armenia, offering down payments of more than $5,000 and starting salaries of just under $2,000, the MoD said. Armenia and Kazakhstan have been republics of the former Soviet Union since the mid-1930s and gained independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.
A British government post on social media added: “Russia has been engaging with Central Asian migrants since at least May 2023 with the promise of fast-track citizenship to fight in Ukraine.”
The MoD said there were “at least six million Central Asian migrants in Russia who the Kremlin may see as potential recruits.” Moscow may want to avoid unpopular mobilization ahead of next year’s presidential election, he added.
The UK Foreign Office said: “The use of foreigners would allow the Kremlin to get more personnel to carry on the war at a time when casualties are mounting.” Weekly newspaper The Russian Defense Ministry has been contacted by email for comment.
Neither Moscow nor Kiev provided their respective totals for loss of life, which could be significant on both sides. The Russian army has lost 264,660 fighters since Moscow launched its invasion in February 2022, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said in its latest figures released on Sunday. The Kremlin has lost about 600 troops in the past 24 hours, the General Staff said.
The Russian Defense Ministry also said on Saturday that the Ukrainian army had lost about 600 soldiers over the past day. Weekly newspaper Battlefield numbers could not be independently verified.
The British government said Moscow was “unlikely to find enough new troops to form a new army” without a “significant new wave of forced mobilization”.
