Russia pays $166,000 for a dead soldier. Men are leaving anyway.
When a Russian soldier is killed, the federal government pays his family 13.9 million roubles, about $166,000 at the central bank's Oct. 15 exchange rate. Many regions add their own payments on top. To see whether that is unusual, we collected the one-time payments 22 governments make to the families of soldiers killed in service and compared each with the country's average annual wage.
Governments give this money different names. The United States and Ireland call it a death gratuity, the same word English speakers use for a tip. Russia's payout combines an insurance payment, a one-time allowance and a presidential payment. Ukraine calls its version one-time financial assistance, Germany calls it one-time compensation and India calls it an ex-gratia payment, while Canada and New Zealand pay a death benefit and a survivor's grant. In this story we call all of them death payments, meaning money the state pays once to a soldier's family, separate from any monthly pension.
Measured against what people earn, Russia's payout is among the largest. Only Ukraine, India and Estonia pay more relative to local wages. Ukraine's 15 million hryvnia, about $333,000, equals 46 years of the average Ukrainian wage, though since September 2025 only 3 million is paid at once and the rest comes in 80 monthly installments that are not adjusted for inflation.
In dollars, Russia ranks ninth. Norway, Denmark, Estonia, Ukraine, Canada, Finland, South Korea and Italy all pay more. The U.S. death gratuity of $100,000 equals about 14 months of the average American wage; troops can buy up to $500,000 more in life insurance, but they pay the premiums themselves. Israel and New Zealand pay small lump sums, and Brazil pays none, because those countries support families mainly through monthly pensions for life.
What the payout buys in Russia
A rouble buys more inside Russia than the exchange rate suggests. At the World Bank's purchasing-power rate for household spending, 13.9 million roubles equals about $453,000 of spending in the United States. Inside Russia it buys:
How many Russians have left
The money has not kept men from leaving the country. No official count exists, but The Bell, an independent Russian outlet, gathered residence data from about 70 countries and found at least 650,000 Russians who left after the February 2022 invasion and were still abroad in mid-2024. It calls that a floor, because some countries did not respond. The research group re:Russia put total departures through mid-2023, without subtracting people who returned, at 817,000 to 922,000.
Where Russia's Wartime Emigrants Went
Russians who left after February 2022 and were still in each country in mid-2024, largest destinations, The Bell's estimates
Soldiers are leaving the army, too
Russia stopped publishing court statistics on desertion in 2023, so the best count comes from Mediazona, an independent outlet that tracks cases on military court websites. It found 5,517 cases against servicemen for leaving their units, deserting or refusing orders in 2023 and 10,308 in 2024. By spring 2025 new cases were arriving at about 1,000 a month. Leaked military wanted lists reviewed by the outlet iStories named more than 49,000 soldiers sought for desertion or leaving their units between late 2022 and mid-2024.
Cases Against Soldiers Who Refused To Serve Nearly Doubled
Criminal cases against Russian servicemen for leaving a unit, desertion or refusing orders that reached military courts
2025 covers January through May only; no later count has been published.
Some of those soldiers leave the country. Idite Lesom (Get Lost), a group that helps men avoid service, says it has helped more than 3,000 deserters since the war began and that about 40% of them leave Russia, mostly for Armenia and Kazakhstan.
Signing up pays, too
Russia recruits mainly with money rather than a draft. Besides the death payout, regions pay new contract soldiers a sign-up payment, and those payments vary widely.
The Same Bonus Buys Very Different Amounts Of Local Pay
Sign-up payment for a new contract soldier (regional plus federal) vs. the region's 2025 average monthly wage, 83 Russian regions
Each dot is a Russian region, and half of them pay at least 2.4 million roubles (about $28,600) at signing, counting the 400,000-rouble federal payment. A new soldier's monthly pay starts at about 210,000 roubles, roughly twice the national average wage.
Because payments track local wages only loosely, they are worth the most where pay is lowest. In Karachay-Cherkessia and Dagestan, in the North Caucasus, the sign-up payment equals more than five years of the average local wage.
Fourteen regions pay only the minimum of 800,000 roubles, including Belgorod and Kursk on the Ukrainian border. In Murmansk that equals 6.4 months of average pay.
Recruiting has slowed even as payments rose
The payments have not kept volunteers coming at the same rate. The economist Janis Kluge, who tracks recruitment through regional budget data, estimated about 1,000 new contract soldiers a day in August 2026, about 20% fewer than in August 2025, as cited by Le Grand Continent. Several regions have also cut their payments in recent months, and Mordovia raised its sign-up payment to 3 million roubles on Aug. 18 only to cut it to 800,000 on Sept. 15.
The last time Russia mobilized
When Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilization on Sept. 21, 2022, the effect showed up at the Georgian border within two days. Georgia's Interior Ministry counted 6,402 Russians entering on the day of the announcement and 11,143 four days later, while the number leaving Georgia for Russia fell. The Economist puts the number of men who fled Russia after the 2022 call-up at 400,000, and Kazakhstan's interior minister said 200,000 Russians had entered his country in the two weeks after it.
Russians Crossing Into Georgia After The 2022 Call-Up
Russian citizens entering and leaving Georgia per day, all checkpoints, Sept. 17–26, 2022
Hover or tap a day for the counts.
Signs of a second wave
No official source yet counts the people leaving in 2026, so the clearest signs come from the groups that help them. Each bar below compares a recent period with an earlier one from the same group, so the bars measure different things and only the size of the increase is comparable.
Requests For Help Leaving Russia Rose In 2026
Recent level as a multiple of the earlier level, as reported by each group, 2026
Prices abroad point the same way. Rents in Yerevan rose about 30% in three months this summer, according to the Russian outlet Verstka, and The Economist reports rents in Armenia up 30% to 50% since the spring. At the Georgian border, the counts disagree. Russia's customs service reported a record of more than 20,000 people crossing at Verkhny Lars on Aug. 18, counting both directions and all nationalities, while Georgia's Interior Ministry counted 7,880 entries in the same 24 hours and called the higher figure untrue.
What the numbers can't tell us
The 2026 figures don't count emigrants. Border services count crossings, Georgia's statistics office counts visits, and the help groups count requests, many from people who never leave. The court cases count soldiers who were caught, not all who left. The payment comparison also leaves out monthly survivor pensions, which most of these countries pay for decades and which can be worth more than the lump sum. The payments tell us what governments offer, not who accepts or why.
What's next
Georgia's statistics office is scheduled to publish visitor figures for July through September around Oct. 30, which will be the first official count to cover the August surge. French President Emmanuel Macron said on Sept. 24 that a call-up of 300,000 men was plausible, and Ukrainian intelligence has claimed Russia plans to mobilize 600,000 over 2026 and 2027, while Putin said on Sept. 3 that "there is no scenario today that would require mobilization."
How we counted. The country comparison counts the one-time payment a government, or a compulsory state scheme, makes to the family of a soldier killed in service in 2025 or 2026, for a junior enlisted soldier with a spouse and one child where the amount depends on family size. It excludes insurance soldiers buy themselves and monthly pensions. Where a payment is set by a formula we computed it from that formula; France's and Finland's figures are minimums and Norway's is a maximum. Average wages are OECD 2025 average annual wages for full-time workers (Taxing Wages 2026) except Russia (Rosstat, 2025), Ukraine (November 2025 average times 12), India (male salaried workers, PLFS 2025), Georgia (Geostat), Estonia (Statistics Estonia), Latvia (CSB) and Israel (National Insurance Institute). Payment sources: Russia, Federal Laws 52-FZ and 306-FZ and Decree No. 98 (ppt.ru); Ukraine, Ministry of Defense; U.S., 10 U.S.C. 1478; U.K., AFCS and AFPS; Canada, Veterans Affairs; New Zealand, Veterans' Affairs; South Korea, Ministry of National Defense; India, Lok Sabha answer; Ireland, Public Service Pensions Act s.30; Germany, SVG § 85; France, capital décès; Italy, Ministry of Defense; Spain, RDL 8/2004; Norway, international operations agreement and base amount; Denmark, Finance Act 2026; Sweden, SFS 2010:651; Finland, Act 1522/2016; Poland, Homeland Defense Act art. 518; Estonia, Defense Forces; Latvia, Remuneration Law; Georgia, Law on the Status of Servicemen; Israel, Ministry of Defense; Brazil, MP 2.215-10. Exchange rates are the Central Bank of Russia's Oct. 15, 2026 rates, converted to dollars, and the ECB's Oct. 14 rate for the shekel. Purchasing power uses the World Bank's 2025 private-consumption PPP factor of 30.75 roubles per international dollar (WDI). Car and apartment prices are from Autostat (via PRIME) and Cian (via Vedomosti). Emigration estimates are from The Bell and re:Russia (via The Moscow Times). Court cases are from Mediazona (2023–24, 2025); wanted lists from iStories (via Meduza); Idite Lesom figures via Al Jazeera and Novaya Gazeta Europe. Regional sign-up payments are from voenschet.ru (Aug. 30, 2026), checked against a second compilation (oskarmaria.de) and news reports for about 20 regions. Georgian border figures are from Georgia's Interior Ministry (2022, 2026) and Russia's customs service (via OC Media). Help-group figures are from Kovcheg (via Meduza), Echo, Novaya Gazeta Europe and The Economist. Recruitment estimates are Janis Kluge's, as cited by Le Grand Continent. Crimea and the occupied regions of Ukraine are excluded from regional figures.
You may republish the charts in this story, with credit to The News in Data and a link to this story.