Sankt Petersburg belegt den ersten Platz bei der Höhe der Einmalzahlung für die Unterzeichnung eines Vertrags mit dem Verteidigungsministerium: Die Gesamtprämie für diejenigen, die den Vertrag unterzeichnen, beträgt 4,5 Millionen Rubel (58.600 US-Dollar).

**Translation:**

St. Petersburg authorities increased the one-time payment for signing a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense by 500,000 rubles — it now amounts to 4.1 million rubles. This is the second increase in a week, Fontanka and Rotonda note.

The day before, on February 18, the payment was raised by one million rubles — to 3.6 million rubles. Thus, together with the federal payment of 400,000 rubles, a person signing the contract will receive 4.5 million rubles as a lump sum.

Both increases were made at the expense of the regional budget. The social policy committee told Rotonda that they do not comment on why the payment was decided to be raised in this particular way.

As the outlet notes, the announcement of the payment increase appeared, among other places, in the Telegram channel of Voenmekh, where students are being offered to join the unmanned forces.

St. Petersburg now has the highest one-time payments for signing a contract. In second place is the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, where the total lump-sum payment, including federal funds, amounts to 4.1 million rubles.

In recent months, the Russian Ministry of Defense has been building a system of outreach among students, including those facing expulsion. Students are being persuaded to join the recently created unmanned systems troops, with promises of preferential service conditions, payments, and academic leave. Human rights advocates noted that a university cannot provide such guarantees. According to them, students are effectively being offered a standard contract, which could leave them at the front until the end of the war with Ukraine.

Sad to think that so many are willing to commit suicide for so little.

Well, you can promise any amount you want, if you never pay it or don’t pay it in full and after death they’re officially only MIA, so relatives don’t get money.

There’s different things you can take away from this. However consider this, $58,600 upfront, equivalent several annual salaries is what it takes to motivate even the most desperate people to sign up. It speaks how little patriotic motivation there actually is and symbolizes the fragility of the regime in Russia, when only for huge amounts of money will anyone do its bidding.