Bloomberg, relying on documents obtained by the agency, reports that Kremlin officials are urging friends and relatives to leave Russia in the coming months and are looking for opportunities to open bank accounts abroad.
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According to the agency, recruitment office workers in the military are acting similarly.
This weekend, the decisive State Duma elections are taking place in Russia.
Reducing the number of officials by 15%: fearing that the dismissed will be sent to war
Earlier this year, V. Putin instructed the regions to reduce the number of officials by 15% in order to reduce pressure on the deficit budget.
The obtained documents state that some officials fear that the Kremlin may mobilize the dismissed people.
According to one Bloomberg source, an official from European security structures, Russia is preparing to send an additional 300,000 people to war.
Unlike in September 2022, when hundreds of thousands of Russians left the country, there may be no official announcement of mobilization.
According to the source, Russia has reorganized the work of conscription and recruitment services so that they can cope with the influx of conscripts: instead of paper summons, electronic ones may be sent, while forbidding leaving the country.
What methods are used
The Russian Ministry of Defense has also gained access to a wide citizen database: the unified military registration now is linked with tax service data, Ministry of Internal Affairs databases, medical history, property information, and border control data.
According to the interlocutor, V. Putin has not yet made a final decision on mobilization.
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However, the warring Russian army in Ukraine needs new soldiers, as the president continues to hope to fully occupy Donbas.
A source familiar with statistics in Moscow told Bloomberg that Russian losses at the front now amount to 1,000 dead per week.
According to him, the army needs more soldiers, but now the “quality” of people signing contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense is very low.
To maintain a stable group size on the Ukrainian front, which V. Putin himself estimated at 700,000 soldiers, Russia needs to recruit about 400,000 people annually.
The average signing bonus for a contract has reached a record level of 1.8 million rubles, but the flow of newcomers is decreasing: in the first half of the year there were 234,000, compared to 260,000 in the same period last year, according to calculations by Janis Kluge, an expert at the German Center for International Security Issues.
Russia’s territorial gains in Ukraine have also almost stopped: during the summer offensive, only 155 square kilometers came under Russian control – 13 times less than in the same period a year earlier, when 2,037 square kilometers were occupied, estimates Bloomberg analyst Alex Kokcharov.
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