Russian regions have begun reducing payments for signing contracts with the Ministry of Defense amid worsening local budget conditions, which by early October showed a deficit of more than 700 billion rubles, reports The Moscow Times.
Since the summer of 2025, payments for deployment to the front have been significantly cut in at least seven regions — Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, Chuvashia, Mari El, Nizhny Novgorod and Ulyanovsk regions, as well as the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, according to Sibir Realii. These cuts concern the regional portion of the one-time bonuses paid to contract soldiers in addition to the federal payment of 400,000 rubles.
In the Samara region, regional payments to contract soldiers (excluding reserve officers) were reduced nearly tenfold — from 3.6 million rubles to 400,000. Volunteers there are still eligible for the 400,000-ruble federal payment, which Moscow has not yet reduced. In Tatarstan — the region with the second-highest number of soldiers killed in Ukraine — the regional payment was cut from 2.7 million to 400,000 rubles, though the authorities have not publicly announced this change. Mari El reduced its payment from 2.6 million to 400,000; Chuvashia — from 2.5 million to 400,000. The Nizhny Novgorod region decreased its bonus from 2.6 million to 1.1 million rubles. In Bashkortostan — the region with the highest number of casualties — the payment was reduced by 600,000 (from 1.6 million to 1 million rubles), and in Ulyanovsk region — from 2.1 million to 500,000 rubles.
According to estimates by Vazhnye Istorii, which analyzed federal budget expenditure data, 37,900 people received payments for signing contracts with the Defense Ministry in the second quarter of 2025 — 2.5 times fewer than in the same period last year, when 92,800 people were paid bonuses for going to war.
In the first half of the year, Russian regions ended with a combined budget deficit of 397.8 billion rubles, which grew to 724.8 billion rubles by the end of September. One in three regions (26 in total) recorded a decline in revenues in nominal terms, while in real terms — adjusted for inflation — revenues fell in 53 regions.
A total of 67 regions closed the first half of the year with a deficit in local finances. The largest budget shortfalls were recorded in the Kemerovo region (34% of revenues), Arkhangelsk region (31%), Komi Republic (30%), Murmansk region (28%), Vologda region (25%), and Irkutsk region (24.6%), according to economist Natalia Zubarevich.
