Posted on 07/24/2024 12:57:29 PM PDT by Twotone
MOSCOW, July 23 (Reuters) - Residents of Moscow who sign up to fight in Ukraine will receive a down payment of 1.9 million roubles ($21,777) from the city, taking their annual pay in their first service year to 5.2 million roubles ($59,600), the mayor's office said on Tuesday.
Total pay will include the downpayment, wages from the defence ministry, as well as regional and federal handouts, the office of Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said in a statement.
The new payments will enter into force immediately, it said.
The increase means that annual pay for Russian contract soldiers from Moscow will exceed Russia's average nominal wage more than five-fold, based on statistical data for the first quarter of 2024.
Generous payments for volunteers have helped Russia avoid a new nationwide mobilisation after a troubled campaign in 2022 led to a mass exodus of people to neighbouring countries.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Makes sense to pay them well, now that Russia is a HIGH INCOME country (thanks to Western ‘sanctions’), from the World Bank (based in Washington DC, by the way).
It’s a lot more than I got paid as an enlisted man on a nuke boat in the 1970’s. Ivan wasn’t shooting at us back then and we weren’t shooting at him. You just never knew when thing would go the other way. Doesn’t seem like enough but I guess if you don’t have anything, it might look like a lot.
Then maybe some Ukraine troops will sign up.
(Tortured title. DEI strikes again)
30th month of Vlady’s “simple, 1-month conquest of Ukraine” starts today
30 months of failure!
Was it a 1% increase? A 10%? A 50% increase?
No one reading this article has any idea.
This is really terrible journalism
Given the life expectancy on the front is 24 hours
The promise is one thing, collecting is something else.
Russian troops are paid in cash by the company commander... many are being charged for food, ammo warm clothes...
The pay in the Russian army
they say is mighty fine
They give you a half million rubles
and take back 499 thousand...
Such a deal.
It is so funny to read the Ukrainian Cheerleaders trying to hang on - it will all be over in January...
“30 months of failure!”
You have a ‘funny way’ of defining failure...
You’ll rake in $240 wowsers
In fact they are paid by transfer to a debit card twice a month.
Alexander Sukhanov said that the starshina of his Company, a second-year conscript, disbursed salaries to conscripts. However, he always kept part of the salaries for himself.
A number of conscripts said they signed a registry every month to confirm receipt of money they never actually saw. In these cases, it was not always clear whether the dedy or officers took the money. For example, Aleksei K., who served as commander of a squad in Totskoe in Orenburg province, told Human Rights Watch that the commander of his battalion came by with the registry once a month, saying “Today is salary day,” and had conscripts sign the registry. However, Aleksei K. and his fellow conscripts never saw a penny. He did not know where his money we
A video that circulated in March 2022, shows Russian soldiers left out in freezing conditions for hours without food, tents or provisions. This is unlikely to be an isolated incident. Mobilised soldiers have also complained of being kept in “cattle conditions” and being forced to purchase their own food and winter clothing.
Soldiers have often resorted to crowd-funding to obtain basic equipment like medical supplies and night vision goggles. There have also been social media posts showing Special Operation Units carrying personal weapons with a mixture of foreign equipment. Even rations have been found to be inadequate, with instances of Russian soldiers receiving food supplies that had expired in 2015.
At the mid-level, Russian officers not only steal fuel, but exploit their positions to steal wages, manipulate budget allocations, and use conscripts for personal gain. This form of established corruption has contributed to inefficiency and the breakdown of military discipline in the Ukrainian theatre.
“They gave us absolutely no equipment. The army has nothing, we had to buy all our gear ourselves,” complained Vladimir, 23, who was conscripted as part of Vladimir Putin’s mobilisation earlier this month.
“I even had to paint my gun to cover the rust. It is a nightmare ... Soon they’ll make us buy our own grenades,” he added in the call that Shishkanova uploaded on her page on the Russian social media site VK.
According to a report by the business outlet Kommersant, prices for bulletproof vests have risen by 500%, and they are now selling for as much as 50,000 rubles (£710). Similar increases in price have been seen for helmets and basic camping equipment.
“Our stock is empty. Sleeping bags sold out two days after the mobilisation was announced,” said Aleksei, the owner of a hiking and outdoors shop in Ekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth biggest city.
https://t.ly/bQ8-J
They told Human Rights Watch that dedy routinely confiscated their property immediately upon arrival at the unit; forced them to hand over their salaries every month, as well as food and money they received in the mail or during visits from their parents. The dedy also frequently ordered first-year conscripts to procure money, food, or cigarettes, thus forcing the conscripts to ask their parents for these items or to beg on the street.
Anton A., who served in a railroad troops unit north of St. Petersburg, said that, before he and his peers received their first salary, conscripts who had served six months more than they had, warned them that they had to hand their salaries over the dedy. “We went to get [our money], came back to the Company and handed it over.” Anton A. said that he did not always have to hand over the full amount.
One night, the dedy woke up the company, put it in formation, brought Igor U. forward, and said: “Did you find the informer?” When he answered in the negative, the dedy concluded that he was therefore the informer. They then ordered him to take off his clothes and told him to get on his knees. Next, they brought forward one of Igor U.’s peers, gave him a condom and ordered the conscript to rape Igor U. The conscript refused. The dedy chose another conscript and told him to put his genitals in Igor U.’s mouth. The conscript laughed and took off his underpants. Igor U. resisted. Eventually, the dedy kicked him, beat him with an iron bed post wrapped in towels, and gave him another day to find the informer. They threatened that if he failed he would be raped. Igor U. fled the next day.168
Even worse for morale than embezzling pay for nonexistent soldiers has been the theft of pay for actual soldiers. There are numerous cases of soldiers not being paid for months, nor receiving their promised combat bonuses.[50] This is not unique to the war in Ukraine. During the First Chechen War, officers “borrowed” their men’s pay to invest in trade deals and profit from high interest rates.
our tax dollars at work
The buy out provision was copied from the British Isles, during the Napoleonic Wars. It allowed some locales to refrain from drafting their men at all. Parish officials were ordered to produce “X” number of conscripts for years long active duty with the militia. Because there was a fixed price, nominally to be used to hire a replacement, for each conscript, the local officials would usually draft the number of men required, and take money of those who could afford to buy their way out of service, and send the money, and the other conscripts off to serve.
But in places where opposition to the war was strong, Parish officials would simply pay from public funds the buy out fee for the number of men they had been ordered to conscript.
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