Paul Goble
Staunton, Oct. 22 – In recent weeks, the governments of numerous Russia’s federal subjects have cut back the payments they have been making to get men to sign military contracts or to survivors of those who have died in Putin’s war in Ukraine, sometimes by enormous amounts and without advance warning.
Earlier this month, for example, St. Petersburg cut its one-time payment to those who sign military contracts from 3.5 million rubles to 1 million , and other regions and republics have cut by as large or even larger percent (svoboda.org/a/v-rossii-sokraschayut-vyplaty-za-voennye-kontrakty-i-gibelj-na-voyne/33879626.html).
A similar trend involves regional payments to survivors of those who have lost their lives in Ukraine. In Saratov Oblast, such payments have been reduced by 90 percent; and in Orenburg Oblast, which had paid out one million rubles for such losses, they have been eliminated altogether.
So far, payments by the federal government for those who sign up or who die have not been reduced or eliminated; but the governments of the federal subjects, who in many cases were offering more than even Moscow, have been forced to take this step because they simply don’t have the money needed to continue to pay out such amounts.
The reduction in bonuses offered by regions is going to make it more difficult for Moscow to meet its recruitment quotas, although it may be that differences in cutbacks of such payments among regions will lead to yet another form of Russian tourism, with those who want to sign up going to places where payments are highest.
But families of those who have lost loved ones in Putin’s war do not have that option, and they are likely to become especially angry given what they were very publicly promised in the case of a death and what they are now not going to get, a shortcoming made even more infuriating because it has been done without public explanation.
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