By Galina Korol | 2023-12-22

KYIV -- Russian mercenary groups are now attempting to hire women for assault units amid dwindling manpower and waning military recruitment.

Such efforts show the desperation in the Russian war effort. Russian authorities traditionally have relegated military women to serve as nurses, cooks and other support personnel, but the situation has changed since Russian men have died in such large numbers, while other Russian men have fled the country to avoid service.

Since the war began, about 315,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or injured, according to US intelligence, Reuters reported in December.

In the initial panic after the Kremlin's September 2022 announcement of a 300,000-man draft, about 700,000 Russian men fled the country in two weeks, the Kremlin reportedly estimated.

As a result of such shortages of manpower, Russian mercenaries are now recruiting women.

The Española battalion, a mercenary unit formed by Russian football hooligans, is hiring women as frontline fighters, iStories (Vazhnye Istorii), an independent Russian website, reported November 28.

The battalion is part of a network of combat units under Redut (Redoubt), a private military company that is coordinated and funded by the Russian military and its intelligence agency, the GRU, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)

"The young women in Española are offered the opportunity to find fulfillment as snipers, but that's not all. The women in our brigade also work in assault forces; health care; communications; and the EW [electronic warfare], SIGINT [signal intelligence] and UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] units," the battalion wrote on its Telegram channel, according to the report.

Journalists from iStories contacted the administrator of the Telegram group to learn more about joining the battalion.

"The first contract is for six months. Of those six months, one to two months are spent on instruction and team training," the Española group administrator replied.

"They get 110,000 to 120,000 RUB [$1,200-1,300] for that time. Then in the war zone that sum is ×2 [doubled]," the administrator said.

"A second contract is possible, starting at three months. It's discussed on an individual basis. When the first contract is signed, the recruit can get a one-time payment of 50,000 RUB [$550]."

"If a female volunteer is wounded, she will receive between 1 and 3 million RUB [$11,000-33,000], and if she dies, her family will get 5 million RUB [$55,000]."

The British Ministry of Defense in October also reported that Redut was recruiting women to its Borz battalion, particularly to work as drone operators and snipers.

Women and PR

Recruiting women for the brutal war unleashed by Russia could be considered a good marketing exercise and useful in shaming men, Ivan Stupak, a Ukrainian military analyst who worked in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) from 2004 to 2015, told Kontur.

"This is a big PR [public relations] stunt. It’s like it's saying, 'Look, women are fighting while you men are afraid; you should be following their example,'" he said.

The training period for the fighters in this battalion is short, he noted, adding that it is impossible to turn someone with no experience into a professional sniper in one or two months.

The Russian women who go to war can be viewed as "not very bright combat 'broads,'" he said, asking, "How well is this going to work out?"

The Russian army has already been recruiting inmates from women's prisons, according to Oleg Zhdanov, a Ukrainian soldier and reservist colonel in the Ukrainian armed forces.

"Women there [in prison] don't have much choice. The administrations of the penal colonies are being used to find the leaders in these groups, and then they're making offers to the more aggressive, more stalwart women, especially because they're existing in grim social conditions," Zhdanov told Kontur.

The first 50 female inmates were recruited a year ago, Olga Romanova, the founder of Rus Sidyashchaya (Russia Behind Bars), a human rights organization, told Deutsche Welle in November.

The women, who were held at a jail in Russia-occupied Luhansk, joined the Russian military, according to Romanova.

Since then, many more incarcerated women have signed up, and today there are thousands of woman convicts serving in the Russian military, Romanova said.

The failed fall draft

Enlisting women in the army is a normal practice around the world. In democratic countries, it is considered an example of gender equality, Zhdanov said.

However, unlike other armies around the world, the Russian army has different motivations for recruiting women.

"It's related to their need to do something to replenish their fighting units," Zhdanov said.

The fall draft campaign in Russia failed despite the large sums of money offered for signing a contract with the Russian army, according to Zhdanov.

Russia has two drafts per year.

"Right now, in Buryatia they're offering 950,000 RUB [$10,400] ... to sign a contract. That's a lump-sum payment, and there's practically no one who wants it."

Russian authorities have instead turned to mass raids across the country.

"There are raids at markets and in shopping centers, and in neighborhoods with large migrant worker populations. They're going about it pretty seriously,” Zhdanov said.

The Idite Lesom ("Get Lost") group, which helps Russians evade fighting in the war, has seen an uptick in raids.

"In November we documented a record number of raids: 73. Some of them even happened in buildings at Moscow State University," Grigory Sverdlin, the founder of the group, wrote on the group's official Telegram page on December 12.

"Illegal 'one-day' drafts, disregard for deferrals, and beatings are appalling practices in the ongoing draft," he said, calling the fall draft "the most brutal in history."

In the next three months, Russia will see a further increase in the number of raids, illegal drafts and convicts being coerced to sign contracts, Sverdlin predicted.

There may also be symbolic, selective demobilizations, which in the run-up to the 2024 elections will be meant to convince the pubic that pressure on it is being lifted and will be aimed at improving the electorate's view of the government, he said.

"Furthermore, we believe that this [slackening] will not be any more than what the government politically needs. Then after the elections, we expect to see the government crack down hard and use all the repressive mobilization laws that have been drawn up over the past year."