Residents of Moscow who sign up to fight in Ukraine will receive a down payment of 1.9 million roubles ($21,777) from the city, taking their annual pay in their first service year to 5.2 million roubles ($59,600), the mayor's office said on Tuesday. Total pay will include the down payment, wages from the defense ministry, as well as regional and federal handouts, the office of Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said in a statement. The new payments will enter into force immediately, it said. The increase means that annual pay for Russian contract soldiers from Moscow will exceed Russia's average nominal wage more than five-fold, based on statistical data for the first quarter of 2024. Generous payments for volunteers have helped Russia avoid a new nationwide mobilization after a troubled campaign in 2022 led to a mass exodus of people to neighboring countries. Russian officials say about 190,000 people have so far volunteered this year to fight in Ukraine, in what Moscow describes as a "special military operation". That, they say, compares with 490,000 contracts signed in 2023. The City of Moscow, where much of Russia's educated workforce is concentrated, has been seen as lagging behind many other regions in the number of volunteers joining the army as a percentage of the total population.
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