Recruiting people for war in Russia has become a business with million-ruble turnover

Recruiting people for war in Russia has become a business with million-ruble turnover

Since late 2024, the Russian authorities have introduced state payments for “assistance in recruiting citizens to sign a contract” and have already spent at least 8 billion rubles on them. Recruitment is handled not only by private companies, but also by state enterprises brought in by the authorities for this task.

A correspondent for "Important Stories" got a job as a recruiter at one of the largest private recruitment centers, “Voevoda.” The company’s revenue in 2025 grew nearly tenfold and exceeded 700 million rubles.

What came to light:

▪️for each contract soldier they bring in, a recruiter receives from 150,000 to 1 million rubles, with the amount depending on the region of residence registration. Muscovites are valued the highest, at 1 million rubles. For residents of Yaroslavl, they pay 150,000;

▪️recruiters work not only at military enlistment offices, train stations, and migration centers. They use purchased databases of personal data;

▪️an ordinary phone number costs 10-20 rubles, while a “verified lead” — a person who has already been called and checked for criminal convictions, illnesses, and willingness to go fight — costs 1,300-1,400 rubles;

▪️about 2,500 people work in the agency’s call center, and they can call up to 150,000 people a day;

▪️they take almost everyone: people with criminal convictions (except under terrorism-related articles), people with missing limbs, women under 45. Candidates are directly forbidden from saying that they are going to sign a contract.

Behind every line of this scheme is a real person who was pushed into signing a contract with the Russian Defense Ministry through manipulation, pressure, and sometimes direct physical force. Recruiters get millions, the recruited get a path into the “meat grinder,” and their families get the suffering of agonizing uncertainty. Nothing personal, just business.

➡️ Save your life and surrender: t.me/kak\sdatsya\bot

The “I Want to Live” project on social media:

😎 FB 🕊 Twitter 📹 YouTube 🥳TikTok🕊Instagram📞Viber 🏢WhatsApp (backup)

Important Stories — IStories

“We’ll train you to handle objections”: how the recruitment center for the war against Ukraine works

A correspondent for Important Stories got a job as a recruiter