Russian soldiers in Ukraine (Image: Getty)
Russian women are stepping up their efforts to find ways to send their husbands and ex-lovers to the war in .
An analysis of queries on Yandex (‘s version of Google) by women showed a steep increase in searches using the phrase “how can I send my husband to the special military operation”.
In , the conflict in is called “a special military operation” (SVO), with people potentially facing a 15-year jail sentence for referring to it as a “war”.
Researchers working for the podcast “Hi, I am a foreign agent” found that such requests had increased by more than 20 times since last year.
A Ukrainian tanks fires at Russian positions (Image: Ukraine General Staff)
“If since July 2023 there were on average less than 200 such requests per month across the country, then a year later, in July and August 2024, interest grew more than 20 times: on average about five thousand requests per month,” they wrote.
The analysts also found an increase in searches for “how to send your ex-boyfriend to the SVO”.
The researchers attribute this trend to an increase in July and August of regional and federal payments for volunteers, willing to sign a contract with ‘s Defence Ministry.
At the end of July, signed a decree doubling upfront payments for volunteers, in an attempt to increase recruitment numbers.
Recruits now receive a signing on fee of 400,000 roubles (£2,985) on top of their monthly wage of 204,000 roubles (£1,522).
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This means that the minimum wage a soldier will earn in his first year of service comes to 3.25 million roubles (£24,243).
In the average annual wage works out at just 1.24 million roubles or £9,250.
On leaving the army, veterans also receive generous government social benefits and subsidies.
These include a 50 percent discount on housing and utility bills, as well as a monthly payment of 195,000 (£1,689) roubles a month.
Additionally, returning servicemen are guaranteed a go back to their original jobs, while their children receive preferential treatment when enrolling in universities.
Russian officials said that some 490,000 men volunteered to fight in in 2023. This year by the end of July around 190,000 had signed up.
Putin’s army has suffered catastrophic casualties during its almost three year war n .
Kyiv estimates that over 700,000 Russians have been either injured or killed since launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.