The ‘Deathonomics’ powering Russia’s war machine

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Going to war is now a rational economic choice in Russia’s impoverished hinterlands. Facing heavy losses in Ukraine, Russia is offering high salaries and bonuses to entice new recruits.

In some of the country’s poorest regions, a military wage is as much as five times the average. The families of those who die on the front lines receive large compensation payments from the government. These are life-changing sums for those left behind.

Russian economist Vladislav Inozemtsev calculates that the family of a 35-year-old man who fights for a year and is then killed on the battlefield would receive around 14.5 million rubles, equivalent to $150,000, from his soldier’s salary and death compensation. That is more than he would have earned cumulatively working as a civilian until the age of 60 in some regions. Families are eligible for other bonuses and insurance payouts, too.

“Going to the front and being killed a year later is economically more profitable than a man’s further life," Inozemtsev said, a phenomenon he calls “deathonomics." So many soldiers have now been killed that the payments—totaling as much as $30 billion in the past year as of June—are a telling symptom of how the war is transforming Russian society and the economy at large. Since the start of the invasion, the Kremlin has boosted military spending to post-Soviet highs, offsetting some of the impact of Western sanctions. Weapons factories work around the clock, providing employment and high wages.