The Kremlin has ordered Russian regional authorities to recruit contract soldiers under a nationwide target of 409,000 people this year as Moscow seeks to replenish its forces without announcing another mobilization.The recruitment quotas were set by the Kremlin and Russia’s defense ministry, according to people familiar with the system who spoke to the Financial Times (FT). Pressure on regional and municipal officials has increased in recent months, the report said, according to The Moscow Times.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official.“Local authorities are under enormous pressure to recruit the required number of soldiers every year,” Janis Kluge, a researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, told the FT.“They know who has debts, who is under investigation and who recently lost their driving license, and those are the people they target,” he said.Kluge tracks Russian military recruitment through federal and regional budget data. His calculations showed that 71,216 federal enlistment bonuses were paid in the first quarter of 2026, the lowest first-quarter figure in three years.Regional budget data indicated that recruitment later stabilized at about 1,000 contracts per day, or roughly 30,000 per month. Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said nearly 200,000 people had signed military contracts during the first half of the year.Latest pressure campaign and mobilizationRussia has relied on contract recruitment, high salaries, and signing bonuses since Putin ordered the mobilization of 300,000 reservists in September 2022. That call-up prompted hundreds of thousands of Russians to leave the country.