$2000 salary and a pardon: Russia's offer to women prisoners to fight in Ukraine

Russia has been adopting measures such as increased wages and early releases to recruit women prisoners to fight the war against Ukraine.

It is part of the larger strategy of the country to boost its ranks in the war against Ukraine that’s nowhere close to ending. It’s not just the regular Russian military that’s recruiting women prisoners, but paramilitary forces and militias are also roping in women.

While Russian authorities have turned to women to bolster war efforts, the approach appears to clash with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s vision for Russian women that priorities family values over working outside of their homes. This also appears to reflect in recruitment where even though women are being recruited, they are often kept away from the warzones and are only posted for medical roles or other roles in the rear.

How is Russia recruiting women for Ukraine war?

Russian authorities are paying women prisoners up to $2,000 per month and a pardon of their sentence to make them sign up for military service, according to The New York Times.

The monthly salary of $2,000 is 10 times of the minimum wages in Russia.

In some cases, the report said that pro-Russia paramilitary forces have also been seen to offer signing bonus of up to $4,000 to women prisoners.

For the purpose of recruitment, prison officials started compiling list of prisoners with medical prisoners following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to the report, which added that such shortlisting was followed by recruiters’ visits to offer contracts to women inmates to serve as snipers, combat medics, or radio operators.

In one case, at a prison un Ural mountains, prison officials put up a notice and sought petitions from the women inmates to join the Russian army.

Yulia, who was jailed for a murder, told The Times that everyone wanted to join.

“Everyone wanted to go, because, despite everything, it’s still freedom. Either I would die, or I would buy an apartment,” Yulia was quoted as saying.

Since the beginning of the Russian war on Ukraine, the country has been recruiting prisoners as soldiers. Most of these prisoners are recruited into irregular units or into militias such as the Wagner Group. Last year, BBC News reported that in addition to regular salary, the prisoners are promised that they will be paid $31,000 in case of injury and their families will be paid $52,000 in case they are killed during the war.

Russian plan’s for women inmates class with Putin’s push for family values

The Russian military’s recruitment of women appears to be in contradiction with Putin’s push for women to be devoted to families.

In recent years, Putin has presented Russia as a bastion of social conservatism and traditional values. He has pitched women as child-bearers, mothers, and wives who guard the country’s social harmony.

“The most important thing for every women, no matter what profession she has chosen and what heights she has reached, is the family,” said Putin earlier this year.

Such a clash between the military’s need and Putin’s vision has “resulted in contradictory policies that seek to recruit women to the military to fill a need, but send conflicting signals about the roles women can assume there”, according to The Times.

Tatiana Dvornikova, a Russian sociologist, was quoted as saying that women were only being recruited as a last resort. She believes the Russian military would delay sending women recruits into battle as long as it has other recruitment options.

Ruslan Pukhov, a Moscow-based security analyst, said that the Russian military “had been trying to recruit more women for rear-guard roles such as mechanics and administrators for years, because they are viewed as hard workers who drink less”, according to The Times.

The idea to recruit women in combat began taking root in Russian military after the country’s intervention in Syria in 2015 where they saw Kurdish women taking part in combat, said Pukhov, who is also a member of the Russian defence minister’s advisory council.