Russia is in dire need of personnel to work at defense enterprises: such factories are looking for tens of thousands of new employees. The production of weapons and military equipment has increased sharply due to the war that Russia is waging. There are few suitable
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personnel on the labor market, sometimes the search lasts for months. As a result, the demand for shift workers in the industry is growing, and some defense plants are actively attracting young people. Russian BBC News investigated vacancies at Russian defense plants. In the
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period from August 15 to September 15, more than 90 thousand vacancies were posted on the largest Russian job search portals, where defense enterprises, state defense orders or the defense-industrial complex were mentioned, as well as published by defense industry
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enterprises. Engineers of various categories, turners and CNC machine operators are especially actively sought. Despite the tempting salary, the ads are not viewed very much and they hang for weeks or even months. In early 2024, President Vladimir Putin said that "in the
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last year and a half alone, 520,000 new jobs have been created in the defense industry." Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov cited a similar figure at the time. According to him, the number of employees in the military-industrial complex has grown by 600,000 since 2023.
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State and pro-Kremlin media regularly advertise jobs at military factories. The shortage is also caused by the fact that Russia as a whole is experiencing a shortage of personnel. Some current and potential employees have gone to fight in Ukraine, while others have gone
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abroad amid the war and mass mobilization. The influx of migrants into the country has also decreased. One sign of a personnel shortage is that the same plant often opens multiple vacancies in the same specialty at the same time. In some cases, plants are trying to solve
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the problem by training specialists. In 2024, manufacturing and industrial enterprises published 1.1 thousand vacancies for apprentice turners, grinders, milling machine operators and fitters, which is almost twice as much as in the same period last year. But one of the most
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effective ways to solve the problem (at least in the short term) is a shift work. Factories and recruiters are trying to attract employees from other regions by temporarily housing them near their workplace. The number of shift work vacancies from January to July of this
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year in all industries increased by 460.5 thousand, that is, by 32%. At enterprises of the military-industrial complex, the highest salaries - around 200 thousand rubles per month (approx. € 1,900) - are usually offered to welders, turners and CNC operators for shift work.
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But not everyone wants to go on a shift. According to HeadHunter, only about 3% of all applicants are ready to agree to such work. In recent months, the recruiting company Ancor has recorded accumulated fatigue among defense plant workers due to the high work pace and large
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volumes of overtime. Neither salary increases nor conscription exemptions help to keep employees from leaving for calmer jobs. Shift work often does not include full days off. Some ads indicate a 6/1 or even 7/0 work schedule for 11 hours. Going to work on a rare day off,
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if one is included in the schedule, is encouraged in some ads with additional payments. Among the leaders in the number of vacancies offered are predictably Moscow and the Moscow region, as well as the Sverdlovsk region, where, according to 2022 data, 20% of Russian defense
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enterprises were concentrated. Despite the obvious need for personnel, the salaries offered at defense industry enterprises are not growing as quickly as payments for contract service in the Russian army.
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A wave of property confiscations that swept across the regions and affected officials, security officers, and judges has brought the state an amount comparable to the annual budget of a small region. In total, over the past 5-7 years, property worth 100 billion rubles has been
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seized in corruption cases, Accounts Chamber auditor Andrei Baturkin reported in the State Duma. The confiscations have reached such a scale that, according to Baturkin, a “road map” is now required to coordinate the relevant agencies that will have to deal with seized companies,
houses, land plots, and collections of luxury cars and watches. It is necessary to “establish communication between the power bloc and Rosimushchestvo so that there is more feedback regarding what property is to be transferred into the ownership of the Russian Federation,”
Bloomberg reported, citing sources, that Greece and Malta have become the main obstacles to an EU proposal to replace the price cap on Russian oil with a ban on services necessary for transporting fuel. According to the agency’s interlocutors, the two southern European
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countries raised concerns about this step at a meeting of EU ambassadors on Monday, where the latest sanctions package against Russia was presented. They warned that such a shift could affect Europe’s shipping industry and energy prices. Both countries also requested
clarifications regarding proposals to impose sanctions on foreign ports handling Russian oil and to strengthen oversight of ship sellers in order to reduce the number of vessels entering Moscow’s fleet. A representative of the Greek government declined to comment.
The most unpleasant forecasts regarding the Russian economy are beginning to materialize. What analysts cautiously spoke about a year ago is now being discussed openly even by the most pro-government Russian economists: the safety margin is rapidly shrinking. While Putin talks
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about “stability” and “growth,” the reality looks far more prosaic: a country that unleashed a war of aggression against Ukraine is methodically burning through its own financial system. According to estimates by Germany’s BND intelligence service, Russia’s real military spending
reaches around 10% of GDP and nearly half of the federal budget. In fact, actual expenditures are 66% higher than officially declared, due to hidden budget lines, Defense Ministry construction projects, military IT infrastructure, and social payments to servicemen. In simple
According to BND estimates, last year Russia’s military spending may have amounted to almost half of the state budget and around 10% of the country’s GDP. According to the German intelligence service, Russia is spending significantly more on the war and its armed forces
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than it has declared in recent years. Since the start of the war against Ukraine in February 2022, Russia’s defense budget has increased sharply every year. In addition, Russia’s interpretation of “defense spending” differs significantly from the NATO definition, German
intelligence officials note. A comprehensive analysis of budget data conducted by BND shows that Russia’s defense budget in recent years was 66% higher than officially reported. Unaccounted expenditures include, for example, construction projects of the Ministry of Defense,
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky explained why he sharply criticized Europe at the World Economic Forum in Davos. He made these remarks during a meeting with journalists in Kyiv, according to a correspondent from European Pravda. Zelensky said he had grounds for critical
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statements toward Europe after a lack of funding led to a shortage of air defense missiles, allowing Russia to strike Kyiv’s energy infrastructure. Zelensky did not deny that his speech may have sounded overly harsh from European capitals and explained this by saying that
Ukraine and the rest of Europe live in different information spaces. He also acknowledged that the differences are not only informational but also emotional in how events are perceived. The president explained that his Davos speech was preceded by heavy strikes on energy
Putin is losing the game he himself started. His bet was placed on a return to the world of the 19th and early 20th centuries - a world of empires and spheres of influence, where Europe, America, Africa, and Asia are divided among several “superpowers.” In Putin’s vision of
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the world, there were supposed to be three such powers: the United States, Russia, and China. However, the real transformation of the global order is unfolding in a completely different way. The key failure is Ukraine. At the end of the fourth year of war, Russia has still
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been unable to subjugate it. The army is visibly degrading, human and technological resources are being exhausted, the economy is held together by military spending and gray schemes, and the state increasingly resembles an overextended empire losing its ability to govern
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