Russia is offering a $22,000 bonus to new military recruits, signaling its desperation to offset losses in Ukraine

• Russia's offering a new $22,000 signing bonus to military recruits in Moscow.
• Russia's military has suffered a high rate of injuries and deaths in Ukraine.

Russian authorities are offering a $22,000 payment to Moscow residents signing up to join the military in a new attempt to offset high rates of deaths and injuries among soldiers in Ukraine.

The Moscow city administration said new recruits who sign a contract with the Russian Defence Ministry will receive a bonus of 1.9 million rubles, or about $22,000.

The announcement said that, in combination with monthly salary and other benefits, servicemen from the Russian capital stand to make around 5.2 million rubles in their first year of service.

UK military intelligence said in May that 1,200 Russian troops were being killed or wounded daily. This is the highest number since the war began in February 2022.

It comes as Russia sends waves of troops into head-on attacks on Ukrainian positions that have been dubbed "meat assaults."

The attacks intensified earlier this year as Russia sought to drive back Ukrainian forces in the Kharkiv region, with reports saying they were often launched for only incremental gains.

Russia is urgently trying to replenish its military numbers in Ukraine with lucrative contracts like that offered in Moscow and also by recruiting prisoners and hiring mercenaries.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin in December issued a decree ordering the military to boost its numbers by about 170,000, increasing its troop numbers to 1.2 million.

After suffering steep injuries and deaths in the early months of the war in 2022, the Kremlin drafted thousands of civilians and reservists into the military, but documents that were leaked in 2023 show it's wary of the potentially destabilizing effects of launching another draft.

NPR reported that protests erupted in dozens of Russian cities after the 2022 draft, and millions of Russian men have fled the country to avoid conscription.

Ukraine's military has also suffered a high rate of injuries and deaths in the war and is experiencing problems recruiting new troops.

Russia has a much bigger population than Ukraine, though. Analysts believe that Putin is planning on grinding down Ukrainian resistance in a drawn-out war of attrition, taking advantage of Russia's bigger population and military production capacity.