Russia Showers Cash on Men Enlisting in Ukraine War, Bringing Prosperity to Some Towns

Expensive new cars and motorcycles crowd the streets.Apartment prices have more than doubled.

And once-strapped residents are suddenly seen wearing fur coats and carrying ostentatiously overflowing grocery bags.That is how one resident of a small, long-impoverished industrial city in Siberia describes her hometown these days.The explanation for the burst in prosperity lies in the isolated cemetery, with rows of Russian flags marking the new graves of soldiers killed in Ukraine, and also downtown, where a billboard lists the scores of local men who went to fight.“I was stunned by how many,” said the resident, the wife of a middle-aged firefighter who enlisted last summer without telling her beforehand.

“Money from the war has clearly affected our city.”The Kremlin has been showering cash on men who enlist.It wants to avoid an unpopular draft, while also addressing the lack of men with sufficient patriotic zeal to join up.

There are large signing bonuses, fat monthly salaries and what Russians call “coffin money,” a substantial payment to the families of the tens of thousands of soldiers killed in battle.The money is changing the face of countless Russian backwaters like the Siberian city.“The allure of extremely high salaries and other benefits has been a major factor in attracting voluntary recruits, especially from relatively poor regions,” said a report issued this year by the Bank of Finland’s Institute for Emerging Economies.By improving the standard of living among Russia’s poor, the payments have spurred support for President Vladimir V.

Putin and the war, researchers noted, while also changing the perception of fighters from patriots to “soldiers of fortune.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for ...