A pro-war Russian blogger announced a referral scheme offering 100,000 rubles (EUR 1000) to anyone who brings in a friend to sign a military contract, the paper said.
Despite the army’s needs, recruitment is falling while several thousand Russian soldiers are killed or wounded each month in Ukraine, Rzeczpospolita wrote.
Until now, enlistment relied on generous sign-on payments from regional budgets — averaging more than PLN 90,000 (EUR 21,000) and reaching PLN 130,000–170,000 (EUR 31,000-40,000) in some areas — but those bonuses have recently been cut without warning, the paper said.
The Kremlin is also tightening discipline by redefining unauthorized absence: a soldier can be deemed to have gone AWOL after two days away from the unit, down from 10 days previously, the daily reported.
The autumn draft runs through December, with a target of 135,000 call-ups. By year-end, the invasion force will gain “at least a dozen thousand” new soldiers, effectively replacing dwindling volunteer enlistment, Rzeczpospolita wrote.
(jh)
Source: PAP, Rzeczpospolita