“Apparently, we will fight until it melts”: in Moscow the number of people wishing to sign a contract with the Ministry of Defense has increased sharply

The city authorities plan to increase the volume of advertising and promotion of contract service in the army

In Moscow, the number of people wishing to enter into a contract with the Ministry of Defense is growing, data from closed statistics of the Unified Selection Point , which was studied by Vorstka, shows. The growth began in the second half of March. In April, the number of new contract soldiers has already exceeded the same indicators of previous months. However, the Moscow authorities promise to further increase the flow of volunteers early next week, Vorstka’s interlocutors say. It is planned to attract new contract workers through additional advertising and campaigning.

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Every day more than a hundred people leave Moscow for the war

The pace of recruitment of new contract soldiers in Moscow in the first week of April broke records for the same periods of the previous three months, Vorstka found out. From April 1 to April 10, 993 people entered into contracts with the Ministry of Defense through the recruiting office on Yablochkova Street. For comparison: in the first ten days of March, 499 people signed them, in February - 503, and in January - 341 people.

The flow of people wishing to sign a contract in Moscow began to grow sharply on March 17, according to statistics from the Unified Selection Point. If in previous days several dozen people a day passed through the checkpoint, then since mid-March - more than a hundred. The increase in demand for service in the Russian army was preceded by news about the liberation of part of the territories of the Kursk region occupied by the Armed Forces of Ukraine and about the negotiation process between Russia and Ukraine.

In total, since the beginning of the year, more than 6.3 thousand people have signed a contract with the Ministry of Defense in Moscow. According to Vorstka’s source in the Moscow mayor’s office, despite the continuing increase in the number of new contract workers, the authorities intend to increase the flow even more in the coming weeks.

“There is a movement that there will be a wave,” says the interlocutor of “Vestka”. — Although now 100+ people [sign a contract with the Ministry of Defense] every day, and this is a lot, but there is information that from Monday even more will come, because regional norms, quotas have been introduced, and some volunteers have been hired. It’s clear that the typesetters standing on the street have also become more active.”

People will be motivated through patriotic propaganda

The Moscow authorities will not increase payments for concluding a contract and will not motivate people with money, says Vorstka’s interlocutor at the mayor’s office. According to the source, they intend to compensate for monetary motivation with patriotic appeals. “Budgets are still not flexible,” he says.

How much do contract workers get paid in Moscow and the regions?

Currently, a one-time payment from the regional budget to those entering service in Moscow amounts to 1.9 million rubles. This is not the highest figure among Russian regions. Contract soldiers in Samara are promised up to 3.6 million rubles. In Mari El, the regional payment is 2.6 million rubles, in the Sverdlovsk region - 2.5 million rubles, in Ugra - 2.2 million rubles. And this does not take into account another 400 thousand that are allocated to new contract soldiers throughout Russia from the federal budget.

Another source of “Layout” in the State Budgetary Institution “Zhilishchnik” claims that the institution has already received orders from the mayor’s office to increase the campaign for sending to war.

“At the end of [last] year, they began to sharply curtail all campaigning, banners and leaflets, but now they are increasing it again,” he says. — We will hang new banners, volunteers will go to the districts with leaflets and propaganda. Why, no one says. But, apparently, we will fight until it melts.”

An employee close to the management of the Moscow Metro also notes that campaign groups are increasing their work at individual metro stations. According to him, new recruitment points for the war opened on April 1 at the stations Lyublino, Savelovskaya, Rimskaya, Kuzminki and Belorusskaya Circle. The points operate during the morning rush hour - from 9 to 11. The total passenger flow of the stations is estimated at more than 132.5 million people entering and leaving by the end of 2024, according to data from the open information portal of the Moscow government.

“Every day in the morning [on the way to work], even several people ask me if I want to sign a contract. It’s clear that they have become very active,” says a source of “Vestka” in the Moscow mayor’s office.

Several recruiters recruiting for the war, contacted by VERSTKA, neither confirmed nor denied the increase in orders for new contract soldiers. “We are not panicking, everything is normal,” said one of them.

Two more recruiters confirmed that the flow of volunteers is at least not decreasing. “I stood there for two days, at [the metro station] Timiryazevskaya, there were a lot of people, quite a lot for sure,” said the Mosmetro recruiter.

The potential increase in user interest in the contract service is also shown by search query data. In March, the phrase “contract for SVO” was searched about 31 thousand times in Yandex in Moscow. In February and January, this figure was lower - about 28 and 29 thousand search queries.

At the same time, as Vorstka noted, since the end of March the volume of campaigning for contract service in chats and Telegram channels has also increased. In the first week of April alone, the phrase “recruitment for a CBO contract” was mentioned in approximately 7 thousand publications. For comparison, this phrase was mentioned almost the same number of times during the full months of January and February - in 7.3 and 6.8 thousand messages in channels and chats, respectively.

In March, the number of mentions of “recruitment for a CBO contract” in Telegram hit a record level: it was found in 21.7 thousand publications. Moreover, mentions began to grow towards the end of the month: from the 20th of March on weekdays, their number did not drop below 700, and on March 24, the number of mentions became a record since the beginning of the year and was found in 1855 posts and messages. During the same period—from the second half of March—an increase in the number of new contract soldiers was recorded in the statistics of the Unified Selection Point in Moscow.

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"Jump into the last carriage"

Discussing what motivates Moscow volunteers to join the army today, Vorstka’s interlocutor, who is involved in their selection, notes that these are, among other things, the successes of the Russian army on the battlefield, propaganda and the desire for revenge. The selector includes the liberation of the Kursk region as the first point, and reports from pro-government media about possible crimes on the part of the Ukrainian military as the second.

“They [volunteers] say a lot: “Look what they are doing,” “Look there, look here,” says a source from “Vestka” who selects contract workers. “The Russian media, which stands on the positions of the Russian state and supports the main line of the president, they naturally demonstrate everything in such a way that they highlight these stories, which have an effect.”

Another reason, in his opinion, is the number of people surrounded by potential contract soldiers who were in the war: died or returned with injuries. By this, as the interlocutor of “Vestka” says, people also motivate themselves to go to “SVO”.

“The number of candidates who say, literally, “everyone is mine there, I have a brother/in-law/friends there,” or “my brother/father/son died,” is very large, maybe 80 percent,” he claims.

However, according to the recruiter, the most common reason for signing a contract is still money.

“The vast majority of our candidates earn less than one hundred thousand rubles a month,” he says. — About half earn around 50 thousand rubles a month. Almost every one of them says that they want to solve financial issues, they want new housing, and due to the way the economic structure in our country looks now, it turns out that every day there are fewer and fewer options, and people choose the remaining option, although it is, of course, quite risky.”

One of the recruiters, in a conversation with a “Vestka” correspondent, notes that some of the volunteers who have been signing contracts lately are trying to jump “on the last train” before the possible announcement of a truce and earn money.

“Well, well, the payments are 1.9 million,” he says. — When you sign a contract, the Ministry of Defense gives you 400 thousand. Then another 210 thousand monthly, allocated by the Ministry of Defense. And another 50 thousand in addition to this money. So I sent two of them at the beginning of March, they were given tasks twice, they went somewhere, they got almost 600 thousand [salary] for the month. There is interest here."

Cover: Dmitry Osinnikov

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