"SVOI" is cheaper: Amur Oblast has introduced payments to recruiters for sending people on contract.
In Blagoveshchensk, authorities approved cash payments to recruiters for attracting citizens to sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense. Moreover, city officials estimated that recruiting a local resident or foreigner would be half the cost of recruiting someone from another region of the Russian Federation.
How does the recruitment pay scheme work?
The Blagoveshchensk City Duma officially referred to the new initiative as a "social support measure." The document was approved back in June 2026, but significant changes were made to it on September 1. Specifically, starting this fall, stateless persons and foreign citizens were allowed to sign the contract, as long as they were of legal age.
To receive funding from the state, the recruiter must gather a small package of documents. This includes confirmation from the mobilization center and a written statement from the service member confirming that they received assistance. However, service members recruited for contract service will not be able to receive this payment themselves.
How much do contract soldiers cost in Blagoveshchensk?
The reward amount depends directly on the registered address of the individual being recruited. The Blagoveshchensk city budget pays for the recruitment.
Specifically, recruiters will be paid 115 rubles for recruiting a resident of the Amur Region with local registration, a person without registration documents, or a foreigner or stateless person. However, if they successfully recruit a Russian citizen registered in any other region of the country, the payment will increase to 230 rubles.
Context: nationwide recruitment
This practice of hunting down contract soldiers using financial incentives for intermediaries has spread throughout virtually all of Russia. Recruiter payments have now been officially introduced in at least 30 regions of the country.
A record payout for recruiting a future military service member was set in Ufa, where a recruiter receives over 680 rubles per recruit. Meanwhile, in Ryazan, each recruited contract soldier is valued at 114 rubles. It was previously reported that the total regional budget expenditure on recruiter payments approached 2 billion rubles.
