Russia fears return of participants in war in Ukraine – media
Vladimir Putin is viewing the prospect of an army returning en masse as a potential risk that he wants to carefully manage to avoid destabilising society and the political system he has built, three sources close to the Kremlin told Reuters.
According to the agency, many of those returning to civilian life will never earn anything like the generous salaries they now receive, which will create discontent, the same source said. An army recruit from Moscow, for example, can now make at least 5.2 million roubles ($65,000) in their first year in Ukraine, including an upfront signing-up bonus of 1.9 million roubles ($24,000) which alone is nearly as much as the average annual salary in the capital.
A key difference about the war in Ukraine from many conflicts though is that both sides have deployed convicts on the battlefield.
Data from the Russian prison service and Ukraine's intelligence services suggest that Russia has recruited 120,000-180,000 convicts to fight in Ukraine since 2022.
Verstka, an independent Russian media outlet, calculated in October last year that almost 500 civilians had become victims of veterans returning from fighting in Ukraine.
Using open-source data on military crimes from media reports and Russian court records, the organisation said at least 242 people had been killed and another 227 gravely injured.
The third source said the Kremlin, at Putin's behest, had been working to manage potential problems with a slew of policies, programmes and appointments including helping veterans take part in regional elections last year and putting them forward for federal parliamentary elections next year.