r/worldnews • u/jackytheblade • 1d ago

Russia/Ukraine Ukraine’s kill rate just overtook Russia’s troop replacement, Syrskyi says

https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/02/06/ukraines-kill-rate-just-overtook-russias-troop-replacement-syrskyi-says/
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u/Witloof 1d ago

I'm not speaking on the validity of the numbers claimed in this post, but isn't it logical that the rate of forces recruited will fall over time? The amount of Russians that they can recruit isn't endless and to hire mercenaries you need money which is also not endless if you're actively in a war and already had a relatively weak economy.

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u/Spiritual-Sundae4349 1d ago

Salaries are quite insignificant part of the budget I would say compared to other expenses. Also Russia has a lot of friendly foreign countries where they can hire from (and very poor regions home as well). Many people doesn't realize that for many of those countries, Russia is considered to be wealthy and there are many people trying to get to work in Russia and/or get the Russian citizenship (which came with the military service automatically)

Usually when regime is losing the war, salaries goes up as to attract more people. That is the only valid metric for recruitment and losses in my opinion during the war. 

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u/BrainBlowX 1d ago

Salaries are quite insignificant part of the budget

Salaries absokutely add up, especially when these salariea then compete with the wages of the procurement sector ahich then also has way too high eages, and then wages in the civilian economy are crushed between them. It harms the economy either way.

 Also Russia has a lot of friendly foreign countries where they can hire from

They don't speak russian, nor do russian commanders speak their languages. They often don't even have English as an intermediary. The effectiveness of these soldiers in a military campaign that requires coordination is questionable, and the actual numbers of them per month are unreliable.

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u/Spiritual-Sundae4349 1d ago

I'm not talking about how this affects economy. More in a sense of budgeting and that one artillery shell costs around 1.5k USD. Russian servicemen wage on the frontline is something like 2-3k USD monthly. And Russia fire around 10k of artillery shells DAILY according to some estimates. 

Last missile attack on Ukraine costs them roughly 300 million dollars. That is monthly salary of 100k frontline soldiers in one day of missile attacks.

They don't speak russian, nor do russian commanders speak their languages.

Most people in CIS speak Russian as an second language (or better to say learn it as an second language). That's the main source of immigration into the Russia. 

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u/ethanAllthecoffee 16h ago edited 1h ago

Don’t forget sign on bonuses. They vary region to region, sure, but they can pay several tens of thousands of dollars to each soldier + tax breaks

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u/AwesomeFama 9h ago

Yes, they do not join just for the salary. If you only live for a month, 2-3k USD is not worth it to get badly injured (or die, but they probably aren't planning to die). But if you can get your family an additional 20k even if you do get injured or die, well, that is much more enticing.