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Russian soldiers expect peace from Trump more than from Putin.
This single finding, drawn from our team’s 3.5-year monitoring of Russian military communities for Ukrainian defense agencies, captures something Western analysts often miss: the Russian army is no longer fighting from conviction. It’s fighting from the absence of alternatives.
For decades, Russia’s political stability rested on an unwritten social contract: the Kremlin guaranteed relative order, economic comfort, and physical security; citizens stayed out of politics and demonstrated complete loyalty. This formula shaped modern Russia more deeply than any ideology.
However bold Russian diplomats are, they’re bluffing, projecting strength to the end.
Since the full-scale invasion, this deal has eroded. The state provides less security, less stability, less prosperity—while demanding greater loyalty and greater sacrifice. Yet the contract hasn’t collapsed.
It persists because Russians, conditioned by fear and uncertainty, continue to adapt.
Two narratives dominate Western discourse about Russia’s wartime condition: that Russia is strong enough to sustain the war for another decade, or that collapse is imminent. The first breeds resignation. The second breeds false hope.
The reality is that Russia is steadily being depleted—economically and in manpower. But this deterioration, cushioned by incomplete sanctions and partnerships with India and China, can continue for some time before the final reckoning.
However bold Russian diplomatic posturing appears, they’re bluffing. This is classic Russian statecraft—projecting strength to the end, never acknowledging weakness, intimidating through force. Yet as The Economist noted, Russia has traded 1% of its population for 1.45% of Ukrainian territory captured over three years. At this rate, several more years would pass before reaching even the territorial boundaries they demand at negotiations.
The Russian system holds together through momentum, not confidence. And nowhere is this fragility clearer than inside the military.
Exhaustion you can measure
Russian forces are exhausted—not metaphorically, but measurably, systemically. Our monitoring of military communities over recent years reveals deep, accumulated fatigue.
In 2022, Russia mobilized roughly 300,000 people—a shock that temporarily stabilized the front but triggered mass exodus. Since then, the Kremlin has avoided another public mobilization, relying instead on covert recruitment, contract schemes, and regional volunteer battalions—over 50 created nationwide.
To maintain even current territorial gains, Russia needs substantially more manpower. That requires general mobilization—precisely what Putin wants to avoid. The political cost is too high. Reserves are depleted. Those willing to fight for money have mostly signed up. Regional recruitment data reveals the constraints: wealthy regions attract few volunteers; the burden falls disproportionately on poorer ethnic regions like Buryatia and Bashkortostan.
Desperate for solutions, they resort to half-measures. Putin recently signed a decree calling up reservists for military exercises in 2026—two clauses remain classified. Starting 1 January, conscription will operate year-round rather than during designated periods. This is a step toward full compulsory mobilization.
Over four years, only two events genuinely rattled Russian society and exposed the system’s fragility: the 2022 mobilization and Prigozhin’s mutiny.
Inside the army, soldiers openly wish for the war to end but insist they’ll “fight to the end”—not from conviction but because they fear their commanders more than combat. Many believe political changes abroad, not in Moscow, will determine when they go home.
This is the psychology of a force fighting from the absence of alternatives.
The money is running out
Money became the Kremlin’s primary recruitment tool. Contract soldiers’ salaries reached roughly 210,000 rubles monthly ($2,100)—a fortune in poor regions. Beyond salaries, signing bonuses ballooned through early 2025, varying by region as the Kremlin set recruitment quotas. But now they’re plummeting:
- Samara: 3.6 million rubles down to 2.1 million, then to 400,000
- Tatarstan: 1.5 million up to 2.7 million, then down to 400,000
- Bashkortostan: 1.6 million to 1 million (varying by locality)
- Nizhny Novgorod: 2.6 million to 1.1 million, with summer reports of non-payment
- St. Petersburg: 1.6 million municipal bonus entirely cancelled
Many regions slashed payments because budgets cannot sustain the war. Some regional deficits tripled year-over-year: Tatarstan’s reached 31 billion rubles, Bashkortostan’s 28 billion, Yamal’s 42.3 billion.
Where money once served as the primary motivator, the state now struggles to maintain even the illusion of financial reward.
Inside the army, the picture is grimmer. Soldiers report that 50-80% of their salary goes toward purchasing basic equipment—drones, uniforms, fuel, even food. Refuse to contribute to the “obshchak” (communal fund) and you find yourself either in a pit or sent on assault missions.
Punishment for unauthorized absence is savage: brutal beatings, pit confinement, assault duty. Corruption is systemic. Many soldiers now admit they would pay simply to leave the front.
The old formula is failing
The Kremlin still relies on an old formula: keep life tolerable, and people will remain politically passive. But every component of that formula is gradually being undermined.
Putin entered the 2000s as the savior who rescued Russians from the hungry 1990s. This narrative pervades Russian regions—”at least we live better than in the ’90s!” The war became somewhat existential for Russians because propaganda instrumentalized the trauma of bad times: if Russia loses, it will be brought to its knees and you’ll live worse than in the ’90s.
- The security situation has deteriorated. Ukrainian drone strikes deep inside Russia have shaken the sense of security in regions previously untouched by conflict.
- Economic predictability has vanished. In 2026, approximately 40% of Russia’s entire federal budget is allocated to military, police, and security services—an extraordinary signal that priorities have completely shifted away from the civilian population.
- Regional stability is cracking. Families from Kursk who couldn’t obtain compensation for destroyed homes for nearly a year eventually turned to public protest—in one of Russia’s most loyal regions. In Buryatia, wives of mobilized men publicly confronted local authorities despite the risk of repression.
These aren’t political uprisings yet. They’re breaches of the deal—moments when people say: “This isn’t what we agreed to.”
The army as mirror
The clearest signals come from the military. Russia’s armed forces are now the starkest indicator of regime fragility.
When an army holds together through fear, is financially exhausted, and forced to fight without clear purpose, it ceases to be a stabilizing institution and becomes a mirror reflecting the weaknesses of the entire machine.
Our research shows:
- Soldiers expect punishment, not support
- Many see no future beyond the front
- Corruption is so entrenched that even survival depends on unofficial payments
- Desertion attempts are widespread; captured deserters face savage beatings and “one-way missions”
- A significant proportion of soldiers hope the war will end through Western political shifts, not Moscow’s decisions
What looks like stability in Russia is increasingly just the residue of fear and habit.
Russia’s social contract isn’t breaking in a dramatic, revolutionary manner. It’s disintegrating gradually from all sides: in exhausted brigades, in bankrupt regions, in families waiting for compensation that never arrives, in soldiers who would rather pay for discharge than stay.
Every contract has a breaking point. Russia’s becomes possible the moment daily life becomes worse than the fear of punishment.
Russia’s social contract isn’t breaking dramatically—it’s disintegrating gradually from all sides.
The mood inside the military—exhaustion, financial collapse, despair—shows movement in that direction is underway.
Russia still projects stability. But beneath the surface, the state is stretched thin, the army is running on fumes, and society is quietly realizing that the deal once struck no longer exists.
Russia accidentally admits what it denied for three years: war is breaking its economy
Multidimensional chess
Russia can still sustain this war—but it can no longer scale. The manpower pool is drying up. The signing bonuses are collapsing. The regions are going broke. If Ukraine doesn’t exhaust itself first and builds its resistance strategically, the breaking point will come.
For this breaking point to arrive before Ukraine’s own forces are exhausted, enormous effort is still required.
This is multidimensional chess. Moving on only one front, or taking turns, means risking defeat. Progress must be simultaneous, leaving no direction unattended: the battlefield; weakening energy and refining capabilities deep inside Russia; strengthening sanctions; pressuring the shadow fleet; and mounting an information offensive against the Russian population.
We need to reach Russians—both in the regions and in the army—amplifying their sense of injustice and the regime’s broken promises. Only simultaneous progress on all these fronts will eventually bring down Russia’s totalitarian edifice.
Editor’s note. The opinions expressed in our Opinion section belong to their authors. Euromaidan Press’ editorial team may or may not share them.
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