President Vladimir Putin’s war machine relies on volunteers fighting alongside conscripts and prisoners at the front, and for the first time since Russia’s full-scale invasion, they now make up the largest category of those killed in action.
The Western media has reported little about the identity of such volunteers and how they are recruited to fight for Russia. While many are just individuals looking for a paycheck, others are signed up through systematic recruitment efforts, one of the largest of which is among Russian Cossacks.
The Cossack recruitment system illustrates key elements of the regime’s manpower strategy and its attempts to co-opt quasi-independent organizations to serve its purposes through a confection of patriotism, pay, and educational opportunities for those who survive.
The Cossacks have already provided as many as 50,000 troops for the invasion of Ukraine (including rotations) and currently have 18,500 on the front lines.
But behind the headline numbers lies a story of manipulation and rewritten mythology.
Recognized as a national organization under the leadership of the All-Russian Cossack Society (VsKO), the Cossacks are divided into 13 regional hosts or voiska. These replicate the 11 imperial-era hosts, made up of authentic Cossacks, and two new hosts on historically non-Cossack lands (the Central host, created in 2005, and the North-West host, created in 2023.)
Building on the success of the new Russian hosts, the Kremlin is replicating the model in occupied areas of the Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Donetsk Oblasts of Ukraine — traditional Cossack lands that owe allegiance to Kyiv.
Each host has subdivisions for regions, cities, towns, and villages, with varying levels of responsibility. While one might expect only “hereditary” or “ancestral” Cossacks to qualify for inclusion in Cossack units, many with names that celebrate Cossack identity, the reality is different.
After the end of the Soviet Union, when ethnic Cossack activism threatened to destabilize the Russian Caucasus, the government in Moscow co-opted the movement. The Cossack register, previously a feature of Polish, not Russian, history, was introduced in 1995 and divided the community into registered (“service”) and unregistered (“ancestral” or “ethnic”) groups.
Putin’s regime has used the register to expand membership by signing up people unconnected with the movement through blood or ancestry to become so-called asphalt Cossacks. The latest Cossack host, in the distinctly un-Cossack lands of North-West Russia, is a result of this.
Despite the lack of historical connection, the troops the North-West host has agreed to send to the front in Ukraine will fight as “Cossacks.” The Kremlin has worked to maintain the fiction that these soldiers are true members by organizing memorial ceremonies for Cossacks killed in 1919 and giving them an office in the Nationalities Ministry.
The Cossack label has become a mobilization vehicle for anyone who wants to fight, and volunteer formations are equipped through the Boevoi Armeii Rezerv Strany (BARS) system, which is similar to the US Army Reserve or the British Territorial Army. Cossacks constitute at least seven of about 30 BARS battalions, and in March 2024, the Kremlin created a Cossack “mobilizational reserve army.”
“New positions for interactions with Cossacks have been introduced in the 33 military commissariats of the Russian Federation” to feed the reserve, the Ministry of Defense said in September, underlining the importance of Cossacks in its plans.
Limits for “top officers are up to age 70, senior officers from 60-65, petty officers from 55-60, and military specialist with special knowledge from 45-55,” the ministry added, suggesting plans for a fully-fledged army.
Reservists have regular military training and access to weapons alongside vetting for the possession of sensitive information and state secrets. More than 6,000 are currently performing tasks for the Ministry of Defense, which has said that 800 have been awarded medals for courage on the front lines.
As with those joining other units, the main reasons for signing up appear to be financial and patriotic. The economy is underdeveloped in many of Russia’s regions, and the cash bonuses offered if a relative is killed or injured induce many to go and fight.
Others join because they have had a regime-friendly version of patriotism drilled into them. The Cossack movement operates social institutions and youth programs that are anchored in Russian society — including preparing future generations for war.
But what is less noticed is the social lift offered by participation in the Cossack units, including preferential access to education for family members.
Some of the Cossack educational institutions are prestigious, and individuals who go to them have access to opportunities not open to their contemporaries, giving a powerful incentive for fathers and brothers to volunteer.
Such inducements may also explain why recent reporting has uncovered the increasing age profile of those killed in the fighting. There are reports of men in their 50s, 60s, and even a 70-year-old killed on the battlefield.
As Putin clearly wishes to avoid the pain of a second mobilization, so the importance of such “volunteer” organizations will increase.
Richard Arnold is Associate Professor of Political Science, Muskingum University, member of the PONARS network, and a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in summer 2024.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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