Contract for death and kickback for survival: how the Economist described the ‘cannon fodder market’ in the Russian army

The British The Economist in an article from April 1, 2026, described the front in the Russian army not as a system of supply and command, but as a real market of life and death. According to deserters and relatives of the deceased, with whom journalists spoke, everything on the front line has a price: a place in a safer zone, leave, equipment, drones, and even the chance to stay alive. To confirm this, the interlocutors showed screenshots of transfers, complaints to the military prosecutor’s office, demands for money, and other documents, which, according to the publication, form a complete picture of front-line extortion.

How this front-line ‘blood economy’ is organized

Officer as master of life, soldier as source of cash

The main idea of the Economist’s report sounds harsh: the Russian war against Ukraine has spawned not just corruption in uniform, but a separate military economy in which career commanders turn their own soldiers into a source of income. One deserter said he helped build an underground shelter for a commander near Baikhovka in the occupied Luhansk region; according to him, the materials and work were paid for by the servicemen themselves. Other interlocutors described similar practices: money is spent to get a more ‘quiet’ position, not to be in an assault group, or simply not to be sent where the likelihood of death is almost guaranteed.

The publication also writes about even darker schemes. According to the retelling of the Economist’s material, before an attack, soldiers could have their bank cards and PIN codes taken away, and then this money disappeared after their death or injury. In such a setup, the front ceases to be even a cynical military machine and becomes a space where command monetizes the fear, helplessness, and dependence of subordinates.

Why this system is not an accident, but a logical continuation of the Russian military model

This story is important not only as another scandalous report about the Russian army. It shows how the internal logic of the war led by Moscow is organized: the state pays for the influx of new people, and part of the officer corps turns these payments into their own cash register. When a soldier is made to understand in advance that his life depends not on the charter and not on the professionalism of the command, but on the amount he can give upwards, it creates not an army in the usual sense, but a paid survival zone.

That is why the story told by the Economist hits not only the reputation of individual commanders. It hits the myth that the Russian army is held together solely by discipline, hierarchy, and ‘state patriotism’.

In reality, it is increasingly visible: the front is held by money, fear, coercion, and a system of extortion in which the officer controls not only orders but also access to life. For readers of NANews — Israel News | Nikk.Agency this is especially important because we are not just facing an internal crisis of a foreign army, but a model of war whose consequences are felt far beyond Ukraine.

Why the Kremlin bet specifically on contract soldiers

After the 2022 mobilization, Moscow chose an expensive but politically convenient path

Here it is important to correct a common inaccuracy. It is not about the ‘forced mobilization in the fall of 2024’, but about the consequences of the partial mobilization of the fall of 2022, after which the Kremlin is clearly trying not to repeat such a painful scenario for society. In 2025, according to official Russian data, 422,704 people signed up for contract service — fewer than the approximately 450,000 in 2024, but still a lot. At the end of March 2026, the Kremlin again publicly stated that a new mobilization ‘is not on the agenda’.

Instead of a new wave of mobilization, Moscow continues to pump the army with money and advertising. Reuters reported that Russia is aggressively attracting people to military structures with large payments and benefits, and in some programs for drone units, they promise up to 7 million rubles a year. Even if some of these campaigns are formally called voluntary, the logic is clear: the state buys human resources where poverty, debt, dependence, or lack of prospects make war a commercial choice.

The money from above does not fully reach the soldier

This is where what the Economist describes as the ‘economy of blood and money’ arises. The Kremlin raises bonuses, regions post advertisements for contract service, universities and local administrations get involved in recruitment, but already on the front line, part of these funds, according to the publication’s interlocutors, settles in officers’ pockets through extortion, bribes, and forced ‘expenses’. It turns out to be a system of double cynicism: the state pays for the body, and the commander takes payment for the postponement of death.

What this material says to Israel and the entire region

Before the world is not just a corrupt army, but an army with a criminal logic

For the Israeli audience, the importance of this story is not only moral but also practical. An army where commanders view subordinates as expendable material and a source of personal income can continue to replenish itself through provincial poverty and state bonuses, but at the same time, it decays from within. Such a system can remain dangerous in numbers, but the quality of management, trust within units, and real combat capability inevitably erode.

The Economist’s report is valuable precisely because it shows the war not through parade statistics and not through statements from the Russian Ministry of Defense, but through the everyday mechanics of violence. The front line there looks not like ‘service’, but like a cash register where some buy themselves an extra day of life, and others take a percentage from someone else’s blood. And the longer the Kremlin maintains recruitment through contract money without changing the very nature of this system, the clearer it will become: we are not facing a temporary distortion, but one of the basic ways of existence of the Russian military machine.