In three years of war, recruiting Russians to the front has turned into a lively market, where behind one signed contract there may be a customer and a performer. Thousands of men, going to fight, fulfill the KPI of regional and city departments and enterprises — and often do not think about it. As discovered by «Verstka», recruiters can be former HR managers who started collaborating with military enlistment offices through intermediaries, mothers on maternity leave who learned to create bright advertising announcements and post them on social networks. Or simply people with a wide circle of acquaintances and a talent for persuasion. The one who brings a person to the front receives from 5 to 350,000 rubles, depending on the status of the customer.
Companies that sign contracts with military enlistment offices or large state customers hire recruitment managers who place posters about contract service in Telegram channels. Recruiters work as individual entrepreneurs either directly with the military or through intermediaries.
Budget enterprises have started publishing tenders for services in «search and selection of candidates» for concluding a contract with the Ministry of Defense. As the publication found out, since the end of May, there have been three procurements from the Khanty-Mansiysk city electric networks for 15.5 million rubles. With this money, intermediaries must send 90 candidates to the military enlistment office. The fee for one person is 150,000 rubles. The electric networks announced recruitment tenders immediately after the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug raised the one-time military payment to a record 3,200,000 rubles in the country.
Another tender for «candidate selection services» was announced by the Alexandrovsky city trading market in the Vladimir region. On May 28, it signed a contract with the military-patriotic training center «Voevoda». For one candidate, they offer 300,000 rubles. The activity turned out to be profitable, from a loss of 604,000 rubles at the end of 2023, the training center managed to achieve a profit of more than 46 million rubles in 2024, after posting vacancies for contract service.
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