By the fifth year of the full-scale war against Ukraine, the Russian army had changed its battlefield tactics: instead of frontal “meat assaults,” it increasingly uses small groups of 2 to 4 soldiers to move through thinly held defenses, hide in ruins, basements, and tunnels, and then strike headquarters, communications, and drone operators. According to an anonymous military analyst, this approach proved effective, including near Pokrovsk.
Before the war, Pokrovsk had about 60,000 residents; by August 2025, just over a thousand remained. In autumn 2025, Volodymyr Zelensky told Bloomberg that Russia had lost more than 25,000 troops in the fighting for the city. Mediazona, the BBC, and volunteers say they have identified at least 200,000 Russian war dead by the start of the war’s fifth year, while the BBC estimates the real number killed at 255,000 to 368,000.
A military expert told Novaya-Europe that these losses are being offset by new contract soldiers: around 450,000 may have been recruited in 2024 and roughly 410,000 to 420,000 in 2025. Against that backdrop, the state has expanded recruitment with higher payments, ads on social media and disposable websites, promises of rear-area service, second- or third-line positions, and “bring a friend” bonuses.
The outlet says recruiters often assure candidates they will avoid assault units, while admitting that final assignments are decided by commanders. Even an “acceptance letter” from a unit offers no guarantee of placement. The article also cites RTVi data showing intermediaries could receive up to 500,000 to 574,000 rubles in some regions for helping sign contracts, while Novaya Gazeta investigators say “headhunters” receive from 50,000 rubles per recruit.
“All the patriots and thrill-seekers ran out back in 2022,” one Russian assault soldier told the newspaper.
Russian servicemen interviewed by Novaya Gazeta Europe describe heavy losses, open-ended contracts, corruption, and pressure on mobilized men. One said many now see injury, rather than service itself, as the only realistic way to return home.