Considering that residents of the city of Moscow don’t seem on average very interested in contract service, the most important thing is to know whether (as Meduza claims) this figure is reserved only for the residents of the city or it’s for all Russian citizens. I have investigated a bit on VK and as far as I have found (like in here, as well as in other posts), any Russian citizen can travel to Moscow and sign the contract, with travel and lodging expenses fully reimbursed if the contract gets signed. This, after all, has been the standard so far for the vast majority of the other offers, and it’s critical to the success of the offer itself as many men interested in signing a contract come from poorer regions that cannot afford certain figures.
I can confirm that over the last two months the bonuses for contract signing have been growing a lot - the increase actually concerns the bonuses themselves, rather than the monthly salary (which seems to have remained stationary at 210 thousand Rubles + any addition of the federal subject + bonuses in case of progress in the battlefield, direct involvement in combat etc). This could be a sign both of issues in keeping up the pace of volunteers compared to the past months and to 2023, as well as a consequence of the competition from the hot labor market, with specialized jobs in the defense sector having reached 100/150 thousand Rubles in quite a lot of regions now.
Bonuses for contract signing exceeded 1 million Rubles for the first time in November 2023 if I recall correctly, with an offer from the city of Saint Petersburg (thanks to the financial support from local construction companies too). Let’s remember that it’s the federal subject giving the highest bonus the benchmark, considering the possibility of signing contracts in that place from all over Russia. Top bonuses remained steady for about 6 months, and since late May / early June onwards there has indeed been a very noticeable increase. I remember being surprised when around a month and a half ago I saw a 1,3 million Rubles bonus for contract service (again in an offer from Saint Petersburg) in the 76th VDV Division, in the 810th Naval Infantry Brigade and in units of the 44th Corps; in early July bonuses from other federal subjects reached 1,5 million Rubles, and now it’s already at 1,9 million!
Late August according to Roman Kostenko. It’s possible that those who were mobilized during the first half of May are beginning to enter the field now, but the new law was passed on May 18 so the bulk of those recently mobilized still has about a month before they enter into combat (there can be quite a lot of downtime besides the training period itself, which should be longer). Zelensky also recently stated that the mobilization is proceeding according to plans, but complained that the country doesn’t have enough training centers for the amount of new recruits.
Those who appear to have already been deployed are the majority of the inmates who volunteered, which aren’t a large number but are still a relief as they are employed in the most in-demand role: stormtrooper. The majority of the former convicts are concentrated in the Chasiv Yar and Pokrovsk sectors. Today Roman Kostenko confirmed that most of the convicts have completed their training period and are also having their first losses.
In Chasiv Yar, Russian sources stated that Ukrainian convicts were brought into battle and that is slowing their advances.
https://t.me/motopatriot/25138
In the Pokrovsk sector, former inmates fighting in the newly created “Shkval” Battalion of the 47th Mechanized Brigade were involved in a counterattack near Novoselivka Persha.
In Vovchansk, Russian sources claimed (a couple of weeks ago) that the Ukrainians are sending convicts on assault in order to locate Russian positions and exhaust their soldiers, then sending their well-trained and experienced assault units to finish the job, and this is causing “significant damages” to the Russians.
I don’t have much to add, and I agree with your assessments. To my knowledge at the moment only the 3rd Assault Brigade will include convicts in its regular ranks, after very careful scrutiny; the others will create separate units. The number of convicts is very limited, so their task is mostly to provide relief in terms of stormtroopers for the next few months, as there isn’t a huge and in some ways even continuous recruiting base like the Russian one, for obvious reasons. Their use is at the discretion of the brigade - some don’t want to receive them because they don’t want to bear responsibilities over them (they have to be carefully managed, understandably); then among those that do take them there are brigades that will use them in a more humane and at least capable way, and others that have trouble being humane even with their regular soldiers…
That said, the Ukrainians are not planning any Bakhmut-like campaign at the moment, if anything the convicts are being used for local counterattacks, thus overall they should be employed in less wasteful ways.
In any case, that of assault companies for servicemen who commit military crimes is an issue that is little talked about in Ukraine (I learned about it after watching several interviews with Ukrainian soldiers). I’m also not aware that it has ever reached Western observers, let alone the Western press (unlike for what concerns the convicts now, which is a highly publicized issue).