New Russian recruits have a life expectancy of just 20 to 35 minutes in combat in Ukraine — showing how quickly Vladimir Putin’s troops are falling victim to drone warfare, according to chilling reports from Moscow.
Once a soldier is signed up to fight, he can expect to live for just 10 days to three weeks — from arrival at the training ground to death in combat, according to historian Peter Frankopan in an op-ed for Foreign Policy, citing Russian military bloggers.
As the bloody conflict in Ukraine approaches the four and a half year mark, Russian military brass are desperately seeking new soldiers for Putin’s meat grinder.
In late 2025, Russian officials claimed they had recruited more than 420,000 new soldiers for year-long military contracts, but even state media admits those numbers are down some 30% this year.
According to military bloggers, Russia still recruits roughly 800 to 1,000 new voluntary contract soldiers per day, with many of them rushed through just a handful of days of combat training.
Average monthly casualties are now running at more than 30,000, with various Western sources putting the total Russian casualties at more than 1 million since the start of the war in February 2022.
Russia — which has a population of about 143 million — is now suffering eight casualties for every one lost by Ukraine, according to estimates cited by Frankopan.
With the struggle to find fresh recruits, some are being offered sign-up bonuses of up to $80,000 and up to $140,000 in debt relief in order to encourage volunteers.
For context, the average monthly salary in Russia is only around $1,000 a month, and far lower in many of the remote regions where Putin is recruiting soldiers.
The extremely high Russian casualty rate is blamed on the astonishing rise in military drones, which have become Ukraine’s most effective weapons.
Ukraine is also increasingly striking at targets deep inside Russia, including a huge attack on Moscow’s largest oil refinery in June that has reportedly put it out of action until next year.
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Ukrainian drones have reduced Russia’s oil refining capacity by some 700,000 barrels per day, according to Reuters estimates.
More than half of Russia’s regions are now rationing fuel, an extraordinary state of affairs for the world’s third-largest fuel producer.
Russia is now spending more than half of its state budget on the military, with experts warning that Putin’s economy is on the brink of collapse.
One Russian blogger, a Ukraine war veteran going by the name Aleksandr Lunin, has accused Russian commanders of regularly torturing their own soldiers, and warned that a mutiny could soon take place.
In the video, Lunin demanded a live, on-air meeting with Putin, and said that if not, “the army will turn its weapons against the Kremlin,” reported Fortune.
But Frankopan, professor of global history at the University of Oxford, said that revolution was unlikely, and instead, Putin could feel he has less to lose by escalating the conflict.
“Beware the drowning man: The coming months will likely be dangerous outside and inside Russia as Putin tries desperately to stay afloat,” he wrote.
