Russia’s manpower crisis is forcing the Kremlin to rely on covert recruiting networks, where volunteer fighters in mercenary structures are seen as “expendable manpower,” according to leaked recordings cited by RFE/RL.

“Second-rate infantry” in Russia’s strategy

In a conversation leaked late last year, Russian lawmaker Aleksandr Borodai described non-army recruits as “second-rate infantry.” He said their task is to exhaust Ukrainian troops before regular Russian forces attack. In the same recording, he referred to them as “expendable manpower.”

The statement highlights how Russia increasingly treats irregular fighters — often recruited through unregulated or covert systems — as disposable assets in a war now approaching 1 million Russian casualties, according to estimates.

With the memory of the September 2022 “partial mobilization” still fresh, and public opposition strong, the Kremlin is avoiding new mandatory call-ups. Instead, it relies on shadow recruitment structures to sustain frontline numbers without triggering mass unrest.

GRU-controlled Redut and Dobrokor feed the front with mercenaries

Systema, RFE/RL’s Russian investigative unit, reveals that both the Redut and Dobrokor networks are controlled by the GRU, Russia’s main military intelligence agency. The structures are designed to enlist men and women under the guise of “volunteer formations” — but operate effectively as mercenary pipelines.

Unlike Russia’s Defense Ministry contracts, which extend until Russia ends its war in Ukraine, mercenary contracts through Redut or Dobrokor have fixed terms — usually six to twelve months — and do not renew automatically.

Recruits through Dobrokor sign formal contracts and receive legal military status. Monthly pay starts at $2,600. In exchange, they cannot leave before their contract ends without risking prosecution for desertion. Mediazona reported that over 20,000 desertion cases had already reached Russian courts as of May.

Redut: cash, secrecy, and no legal existence

Redut, by contrast, operates in a legal gray zone. It does not require fitness screening, accepts people with criminal records, and allows early departure. It attracts recruits by offering cash payments, which can be hidden from creditors, courts, or ex-spouses.

However, Redut mercenaries are not legally considered military personnel. They are ineligible for state compensation, hospital treatment, or veteran status.

“From a legal point of view, you don’t exist,” a recruiter for the Nevsky unit told Systema, adding: “There’s no service, nothing: No hospitals, no rehabilitation, nothing.”

Redut also provides no gear or uniforms up front. One recruiter told RFE/RL that new fighters are given 50,000 rubles ($640) only with their third paycheck — assuming they survive that long.

Small bonuses, big risks

The Russian Defense Ministry offers up to $46,000 in signing bonuses for official contracts. Dobrokor pays far less — often $640–$1,280. Redut mercenaries get no regional bonus at all.

Despite these risks and limitations, thousands continue to join. Deputy Security Council Chairman Dmitry Medvedev claimed over 210,000 people signed military contracts in the first half of 2025. Another 18,000 joined so-called “volunteer” formations — a term now widely used to mask informal, often unregulated mercenary service.

Janis Kluge of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs estimates the actual number of contract soldiers may be closer to 190,000.

When Russia pivoted to motorcycle-based offense, Ukraine began shifting to anti-motorcycle defense. There were delays, but new bike-beating tools are proliferating across the 1,100-km front line of Russia’s wider war on Ukraine. 

It’s possible these new tools are already slowing Russia’s summer offensive.

Some Ukrainian drones are dropping traffic spikes—unfolding ribbons with tire-popping metal spikes—in order to block roads ahead of Russian motorcycle assaults.

The traffic spikes work. A video montage posted online by the Ukrainian 82nd Air Assault Brigade recently depicts drones dropping the spikes by night near Pokrovsk—and causing Russian bike troops to crash by day. The brigade apparently sends grenade-dropping bomber drones and explosive first-person-view drones to strike the ejected riders after they crash.

For at least a year now, Ukrainian drone teams including the famed Birds of Magyar have been seeding roads behind the Russian line with pointy chunks of metal called “caltrops” that, like the traffic spikes, can pop tires and stop traffic. 

The caltrops, along with the traffic spikes and other simple countermeasures are taking on greater importance now that Russian regiments have largely shifted to infantry and motorcycle assaults. 

Having written off more than 20,000 tanks, fighting vehicles and other heavy equipment to Ukrainian mines, artillery, missiles and drones since widening its war on Ukraine in February 2022, Russia is mostly holding back the few combat vehicles it has left. Perhaps saving them for a future war somewhere else in Europe.

There’s a cold logic to the tactical shift. “Motorcycles give them a higher chance of success in their operations,” Ukrainian-American war correspondent David Kirichenko said of the Russians. “Just as long as you can drive fast and maneuver through the mines, then you’re able to more quickly assault the Ukrainian positions.”

“The Russians hope that with enough charges, enough soldiers over a few weeks can maybe gather into the bunker of a building—and when they get there, they start digging in really, really deep and try to build trenches,” Kirichenko added. 

“Over time, once they have enough soldiers that aggregate in that area and they’re ready to assault the neighboring street, the Russians will launch glide bombs, launch artillery fire, everything that they have—and allow their soldiers to conduct these meat-grinder assaults, street by street.”

But the speedy Russian bike assaults work only as long as the Ukrainians are still basing their defensive plans around slower mechanized assaults. It’s evident that some simple countermeasures could stop the bikes in their tracks. Recall that, back in May, one Russian motorcycle soldier came to a bad end when he tried and failed to jump his bike across a wide Ukrainian trench. He crashed into the earthworks, apparently dying in the impact. 

Classic tools

“Ukraine can adapt with, like, classical tools of anti-infantry defense—everything from anti-personnel mines, caltrops against, like, light vehicles so that they puncture their tires and they crash somewhere, barbed wire or modern-day concertina wire,” explained Jakub Janovksy, an analyst with the Oryx intelligence collective. 

“If Ukraine manages to scale these defenses sufficiently to make light infantry, and what I would call ‘motorized cavalry assaults,’ non-viable—or at least much less useful than they currently are—Russia would be in quite significant bind,” Janovsky said.

While the Russians could pivot back to mechanized assaults, they’d still have to contend with the same mines, artillery, missiles and drones that rendered mechanized assaults unacceptably costly. Moreover, they’d have fewer vehicles to devote to a fresh round of mechanized attacks. 

“This war has already chewed through a very significant percentage of what Russia had,” Janovsky explained, “and it’s a question of how much they intend to preserve beyond this war for potential future use in other conflicts.” 

“So I think this is a potential weakness of the current Russian approach,” Janovsky said. Russia deployed bike troops to speed up the pace of its assaults and preserve its remaining armor. That helped them accelerate their advances in Ukraine this spring. Russian regiments captured around 13 square km a day in May and June—double the rate in June.

But the Ukrainians may be able to slow the advance, or even reverse it, with cheap, simple tricks for crashing motorcycles. There’s already some evidence it’s working. After capturing more than 150 square km of Sumy Oblast this spring with an all-infantry force almost completely lacking heavy armored vehicles, the Russians are now pulling back in Sumy.

Russian hopes for a big northern penetration, perhaps all the way to Sumy city, appear to be fading. Attacking on foot or on bike along spiked roads against dug-in Ukrainian troops, the Russians may be preserving their last remaining tanks. 

But they’re also handing the Ukrainians a golden opportunity to stiffen the front line with spikes, wire and trenches—making a major Russian breakthrough even less likely than it was before most of Russia’s tanks went home. 

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Russian troops can’t hide from Ukraine’s killer night drones

Anton, a fighter from Ukraine’s 58th Separate Motorized Infantry Brigade named after Hetman Ivan Vyhovskyi, known as Shket, has spent a year holding the line on some of the fiercest frontlines in Donetsk Oblast.

Over the last 12 months, he’s faced a wide range of Russian occupiers, from mobilized conscripts to convicts, Yakuts, and even Koreans.

“It was hell,” the soldier recalls.

The toughest position he held was a half-destroyed customs checkpoint that came under daily assaults, twice a day for 17 days straight, by Russian assault groups, including a unit made up of former inmates.

“When we checked their documents, it was clear — they were convicts recruited in Butyrka prison. They were given the cheapest body armor. Their commander didn’t even have a helmet. Command sent them straight to die,” Shket says. 

Shket explains that each Russian group has its own characteristics.

“Yakuts are a bit more stubborn, but they charge in just the same, without thinking. The Koreans, though — they’re young, resilient, and actually well-trained. But we can and must destroy them. It’s either us or them. There’s no third option,” the Ukrainian soldiers reveal. 

Despite his injuries, Anton remains resolute.

“I’m always ready to return as soon as I can. We should take example not from those who talk, but from those who act, even when it’s terrifying,” he adds. 

Currently undergoing treatment in a military hospital, first for a severe concussion and more recently for a new injury, Shket was wounded again after stepping on a Russian explosive device while returning to the front to relieve his comrades after heavy rotations.