Russia is recruiting thousands of volunteers to replenish its ranks in Ukraine. Prior experience isn’t always required

Putin has long resisted the idea of ​​total mobilization in Russia, and the order to summon this spring this year is similar to that of 2021. These battalions are a way to increase Russia’s military manpower without the need Such a drastic step. They also focus on poorer and more isolated areas, using the lure of quick cash.

“Some battalions will be fully engaged in combat support and combat support operations (such as rear battalions),” said Kateryna Stepanenko, a Russia researcher at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington. need or signal), while others would reinforce pre-existing military units or form combat battalions.”

But she added: “Short-term training is unlikely to turn volunteers with no prior experience into effective soldiers in any unit.”

CNN sought comment from the Russian Defense Ministry about the volunteer battalion program.

Patriotism – and cash

Stepanenko says the process is being accelerated from Moscow. “The Kremlin is said to have ordered all 85 Russian federal subjects (regions of the Russian Federation plus occupied Crimea and Sevastopol) to recruit volunteer battalions to avoid claims of partial mobilization. or all in Russia.”

But regions are expected to help fund recruitment, which she said “puts a heavy strain on regional budgets.” For example, Krasnoyarsk in Siberia had to spend about $2 million on the project, Stepanenko said.

The qualifications required to participate vary from place to place. “We invite men under the age of 49 who have served in the military and offer to sign a four-month contract in your military specialty,” said an online seller in Kazan in Tatarstan.

Elsewhere, men aged 60 and under with no criminal record will be allowed to participate. There is usually no requirement for previous military experience listed in online notices.

The Perm post – titled “A Job For Real Men” – searches for “courageous, daring, brave, confident, extraordinary and all-round patriots of our people.”

According to the posts, about a month is spent training – not much for a rookie situation with little or no military experience. According to standard policy of the Russian Ministry of Defense, all contracted recruits undergo four weeks of combined weapons training. Whether the same regimen will be extended to all volunteers remains unclear.

Several volunteer battalions passed through the Mulino training ground near Nizhny Novgorod, according to social media posts.

Contracts for volunteers range from four months to one year. They promise salaries much higher than the average in Russian regions. For example, battals are being formed in Perm and the Western Russian region of Kirov providing income starting at 300,000 rubles monthly (about 5,000 USD), while in Bashkortostan, near the border with Kazakhstan, the minimum is is 280,000 rubles. Bashkir volunteers from Bashkortostan were promised an additional 8,000 rubles per day for combat operations.

An announcement that went viral on social media channels in Bashkortostan said: “In the summer you can easily earn about a million rubles!”

The average monthly salary in these regions is between 30,000 and 45,000 rubles, about a tenth of what a volunteer might get if deployed to the front lines.

There are also other perks. In Perm and Kirov, the children of volunteers were given preferential admission to universities. Volunteers will be considered “veterans”, granting them a monthly stipend for living and reduced prices for housing and transportation.

And there is a scale of compensation for casualties on the battlefield, in some cases more than 3 million rubles if seriously injured. If a volunteer dies, their family will receive 12.4 million rubles from the federal budget and 2 million from the region.

Some volunteers told the online publication Verstka that they are motivated by wages, so, for example, they could build a house. Others seem inspired by patriotism; Some appear to simply want an adventure.

One, named Vitaly, told Verstka: “I respect the achievements of our ancestors, and it’s hard for me to see them talked about. And of course, there’s a nice reward in the form of payment that doesn’t make any sense. given by the government.”

Others told Verstka they were inspired to remove Ukraine from Nazism, a sign of the power of Russian state media, which has relentlessly emphasized the view that Russia’s actions are to de-fascist Ukraine.

If all regions of Russia created one battalion, the costs would be considerable. Kateryna Stepanenko estimates a 400-person unit will cost $1.2 million per month in wages, which she says is expensive because the program won’t produce elite units.

From the Arctic to Central Asia

Chechen volunteers were the first to enter Ukraine shortly after the invasion began. The Vostok Battalion was active in Mariupol, where it took part prominently in infantry operations. The Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, frequently neutralized the Vostok Battalion.

At the end of April, Kadyrov said on his Telegram channel that “hundreds of brave soldiers from different corners of our vast country have decided to become part of the liberators of Russia.”

And in May, he said 200 “soldiers of goodwill” had graduated from the Russian Special Forces University in Gudermes and set off for Ukraine every week.

According to some estimates, as many as 8,000 Chechens fought in Ukraine. They took part in the campaigns to capture Severodonetsk and Lysychansk.

Volunteers from Buryatia in the Russian Far East also soon joined; several people were killed, including one famous for fighting in Syria.

Recently, other regions of Russia have stepped up. A prominent case is the republic of Bashkortostan.

A retired naval officer, Alik Kamaletdinov, announced on social media that he is recruiting for a volunteer battalion because “Bashkiria has always been the mainstay of our state in difficult times… . Let’s support our country and our President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin not with words but with actions!”

The governor of Bashkortostan, Radiy Habirov, posted on Telegram last week: “Today we will send off the second Bashkir battalion to Donbas.”

“So more than 800 volunteers, all sons of Bashkortostan, will go to defend our country and the Donbas brothers.”

Other regions that have begun to strengthen volunteer battalions include Chelyabinsk in the Urals and Primorsky in the Russian Far East. Photos of nearly 300 Chelyabinsk volunteers were posted last week.

The head of the recruitment office in Tatarstan, Evgeniy Tokmakov, said at a press conference that “battalions should be formed only from Tatarstan natives, so that they can join the ranks, standing shoulder to shoulder , know each other.”

A number of Cossack fighter units are also being formed – it is not surprising that they took part prominently in eastern Ukraine in 2014. The Orenburg region sent three Cossack battalions to the battle.

The pace of recruitment is accelerating – in the past few days, the regions of Murmansk in the Arctic Circle and Tyumen in Western Siberia have announced the creation of volunteer units.

‘A crowd with rifles’

It remains unclear how these battalions – most of which are smaller than a conventional battalion – will be integrated into the Russian campaign. Tatar and Bashkir units will be made into motorized rifle battalions.

According to regional authorities, the volunteer battalion raised in Primorsky Krai will consist only of local residents and will support the 155th Guards Marine Brigade.

There are signs that the shortage of Russian manpower in Ukraine is beginning to worsen. Ukraine’s Center for Combating Misinformation says it has found jobs for more than 20,000 Russian contract service workers in regional job centers. There have been persistent reports that some battalion-level combat groups have had to be rebuilt.

But as one analyst puts it, a battalion is more than “a mob with rifles.”

“These poorly trained recruits are likely to be used as cannon fodder in light of Russia’s treatment of conscripts and former proxies,” said Stepanenko of the Institute for the Study of War. .”

It’s hard to imagine how these disparate groups with no battlefield knowledge and non-existent or non-existent military skills would affect the conflict. The task of infantry among Russian forces was mainly to take over places that had been destroyed by indirect fire.

Even so, Stepanenko said, the Russians “continued to suffer heavy losses without gaining much base. As a result, they required a constant supply of Russian manpower to repair their losses. ”

The Ukrainian army is monitoring the formation of units. Vadym Skibitskyi, spokesman for the Main Intelligence Service, said Russia is planning to create 16 new battalions by the end of July. He told the online portal Crimea.Reali that “according to our estimates, there will be about 4,000 people in each region, including Crimea.” Skibitskyi confirmed to CNN that his remarks were reported correctly but declined to provide further details.

Stepanenko believes that the ultimate goal is a form of mobilization by stealth.

“Putin seems to lack confidence that pro-war polls and protests will survive a combined effort,” Stepanenko said.

“Such separation allows Putin to control the appearance of the invasion without upsetting most Russian men and their families.”