The disappearing act. Russian outlets remove reference to 250,000 jobless soldiers returning from Ukraine

Several Russian media outlets quietly changed their headlines about the number of unemployed soldiers who had returned from the war in Ukraine, independent outlet Faridaily has reported. References to 250,000 people were replaced with the a more vague phrasing “tens of thousands”.

On December 23, 2025, Sergei Novikov, head of the presidential department for public projects, said that around 250,000 soldiers who had returned from the frontlines were not employed anywhere.

He described the situation as a “grey zone”: people had come back, were not working, were living off the payments they had received or were “earning money in other ways”, and the authorities, he said, “need to deal with this”.

The state news agency RIA Novosti published Novikov’s remarks under the headline “About 250,000 SMO veterans remain unemployed, Novikov says”. The article was later edited, with the figure removed.

Faridaily says it was unable to find a broadcast or recording of the event at which Novikov spoke. The business daily Kommersant, the Telegram channel Context, and the websites Ridus and Tsargrad republished the story in its original form before changes were made. Kommersant later removed the reference to 250,000 unemployed people, following RIA Novosti. According to a source at one of the outlets, the story was amended “after a call from above”. Reprints in other media, however, appear not to have attracted official attention.

A Faridaily source within the Russian government says the figure of 250,000 is approximate but broadly reflects reality. For the authorities, however, it looks “negative”, and a decision was taken to remove it from the news agenda.

On the same day, another state news agency TASS, also citing Novikov, reported that 167,000 “veterans” had returned to “civilian life”. It did not specify what the authorities meant by this phrasing. Kommersant noted that the figure refers to people holding official combat veteran certificates. Faridaily believes this group may form part of the 250,000 unemployed former soldiers.