Governors reduce payouts against the backdrop of local budget deficits
Authorities in Russian regions have begun reducing payouts for war deaths in Ukraine amid local budget deficits that reached 1.5 trillion rubles last year. At least six federal subjects of Russia have reduced these payments, while Orenburg Oblast completely cancelled them starting July 1. This was reported by UkrRudProm citing Janis Kluge, according to the portal PromPolitInform.
In Bashkortostan, the amount was gradually reduced from the initial 2 million rubles down to 100,000 rubles. Kirov and Omsk oblasts halved their payouts to 500,000 rubles, whereas in Ulyanovsk Oblast the amount collapsed 20-fold to just 50,000 rubles.
Regional budget deficits
Local budgets are forced to find funds to finance recruitment for the war and raise the average contract-signing bonus to 3.4 million rubles. Despite this, the influx of contract soldiers dropped by 20% in the first quarter and by 10% in the second quarter year-on-year.
According to the researcher, governors are trying to balance budgets by cutting civilian expenditures. In particular, healthcare financing at the regional level dropped by 6.4% in January—March compared to the same period last year.
Logic of regional payments
The expert notes that such steps correspond to political and economic logic due to a lack of resources. Death payouts play only a minor role in recruitment since no one thinks about their own death when signing a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defence.
Illustrative photo: Matveev Michail / CC BY 3.0
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