14 September 2026
Russian regional authorities are reducing payments for those killed in the war with Ukraine amid mounting problems in local budgets, which suffered a record deficit of 1.5 trillion rubles last year.
In recent months, at least six Russian regions have radically reduced their “coffin taxes,” and one has abolished them entirely, noted Janis Kluge, a research fellow at the German Institute for International Security Studies.
Bashkortostan, where death benefits initially amounted to 2 million rubles, reduced the payment to 1 million, then 500,000, and finally to just 100,000 rubles. The Kirov and Omsk regions halved their death benefits, from 1 million to 500,000 rubles. In the Ulyanovsk region, they plummeted 20-fold, from 1 million to just 50,000 rubles. And the Orenburg region abolished payments entirely, effective July 1 of this year.
The need to pay for military recruitment is placing an increasingly heavy burden on regional budgets, notes Kluge. To meet the Kremlin’s quotas, they increased the average payment for signing a contract with the Ministry of Defense to 3.4 million rubles this year. Despite this, the influx of contract soldiers in the second quarter decreased by 10% year-on-year, and by 20% in the first quarter, reaching a two-year low of 70,500, according to Kluge’s calculations.
To make ends meet in local budgets, governors are cutting civil spending, the expert notes. For example, healthcare funding at the regional level fell by 6.4% from January to March compared to the same period last year.
The reduction in “death pay,” which remained stable for almost the entire war, fits into this practice and corresponds to “political and economic logic,” Kluge believes: “Regional death pay plays only a minor role in supporting the recruitment process—a key task that regional authorities are obligated to fulfill. Regions don’t rely on these payments to attract new recruits, since no one wants to think about their own death when signing a contract.”
Regional budget problems are linked to the ongoing slowdown in the Russian economy, which is impacting regional tax revenues, Kluge emphasizes. According to the Accounts Chamber, 56 regions posted deficits in the first quarter ( compared to 46 in the same period last year). By the end of the first half of the year, regional expenditures exceeded revenues by 56 billion rubles.
This year, the total deficit in the treasuries of Russia’s constituent entities will reach 2 trillion rubles, predicts Alexander Isakov, Managing Director and Head of Sber’s Center for Macroeconomic Research. Compared to 2025, the deficit will increase by 500 billion rubles, or 33%, and its nominal size will break historical records for the second year in a row, according to Sber’s estimates.
So, bye-bye Ladas, hello piles of firewood.
Sounds like something the pentagon would do under this current administration.
But that bastard enriched himself by at least 2 billions.