Russia is offering about £20,000 bonuses through Facebook ads to lure American and British fighters into the Ukraine war, Ukrainian sources say, as Moscow struggles to replace heavy losses.
The Sun reported that Moscow is pushing eye-watering payments of about £20,000 to people who sign up for Russia’s army, with recruitment running through social media ads on Facebook, TikTok, and Telegram.
U.S. recruits are usually paid a £20,000 signing bonus and £1,500 a month, according to that account of the drive. Foreigners, including Americans, have turned up among the new fighters on the Ukrainian front.
Vitaliy Matvienko, who heads a Ukrainian state project on Russian surrenders, described the pressure behind the pitch. He said Russia is taking 30,000 to 40,000 casualties every month and can no longer cover the losses with its own people alone.
"Russia suffers 30,000, 40,000 casualties every month and they are no longer able to cover their losses."
Matvienko told The New York Post the foreign pipeline serves a cold purpose. Dead outsiders do not spark the same backlash inside Russia.
"They recruit foreigners, send them to war, and when they are killed, their deaths do not create any negative reaction in Russian society."
He added that families of killed foreign recruits often never see the compensation they were promised.
"In most cases, the families of killed foreign recruits do not receive the compensation they are supposed to receive."
Reporting tied to the full-scale invasion put total Russian casualties at 1.5 million, including 500,000 deaths, over the four years since the major assault began. A recent report cited in the same coverage claimed the average life expectancy for one of Putin’s soldiers on the battlefield was just 20 minutes.
The frontline has sat in a standstill for the last year, with waves of Russian troops still being ground down. That attrition is the backdrop for Trump’s focus on tens of thousands dead each month as he pushes both sides toward a deal.
Ukrainian intelligence has identified nearly 30,000 foreigners from 135 countries in Russia’s ranks and warns the real number is much higher. Kyiv also estimates 20,000 North Koreans were sent by Kim Jong-un. At least 17 other Americans have been identified in Russia’s army.
Seth William Baker, a lance corporal from Gilbert, Arizona, joined the U.S. Marines at 18 as a bulk fuel specialist with the 4th Marine Logistics Group and earned the National Defense Service Medal. He later refused the Covid vaccine, was discharged, and signed up to fight for Russia.
Baker was killed on the frontlines at age 23, three months after signing up. Matvienko sketched a young man who had trouble landing after military service.
"He was discharged from military service, failed to get into a police academy, and apparently struggled to find his place in American society."
"Seth was obviously a young man who was susceptible to influence."
Michael Gloss, 21, the son of a high-ranking CIA official in the United States, signed up and was killed in April 2024. In one meeting, Putin presented a medal for outstanding civilian service to Donald Trump’s top envoy Steve Witkoff to hand to Gloss’s parents.
That channel sits alongside the same diplomatic track in which Trump envoys described encouraging Kyiv peace talks after a Moscow summit with Putin.
Wilmer Puello-Mota, a 30-year-old former Massachusetts city councilor, was standing trial on a child porn charge tied to an accusation that he had photos of a naked 17-year-old girl on his phone in 2020. He fled the country and is now fighting for Putin, the report stated.
In August, a British fisherman who left to fight for Russia became the first Brit reported killed on the Ukrainian frontline.
Matvienko said an American on Russia’s side is treated as a prize for state media. Commanders and outlets milk the optics.
"When an American suddenly ends up fighting on Russia’s side, it becomes an almost sacred event for Russian propaganda."
"Their opinions are presented as extremely important. They are invited onto television, featured in reports, interviewed, and taken around Russian media outlets and public events."
"Russian propaganda presents them as proof that ‘people in the West understand what is really going on,’ or that ‘ordinary Americans support Russia’."
He described a “very strange, almost psychedelic attitude toward Americans” inside that machine. The same industry around recruitment, he said, has become very profitable.
Foreign fighters who reach their units face a second shakedown. Matvienko said a significant part of their salary is taken away.
"When they arrive at their military units, they are told they must contribute money to the unit’s ‘fund’ to buy drones, vehicles, fuel, and other equipment."
"Those who refuse may be beaten or threatened with execution."
Multiple reports cited in the coverage also described torture and racial abuse inside Russian formations. The social media ads keep coming anyway on Facebook, TikTok, and Telegram.
Moscow’s need for fresh bodies tracks with wider pressure on Europe. Putin has threatened war with Russia if Europe sends troops into the fight, even as strikes hit civilians across Ukrainian cities.
Russian air activity has already forced Nordic responses, including the first joint Finnish-Swedish scramble after Russian warplanes tested the region and mocked European warnings.
NATO has likewise scrambled jets over the Gulf of Finland as officials warn of rising attack risk from the same pattern of probes.
Britain and the United States now face a blunt fact: cash bonuses on major social platforms are pulling their own citizens into a foreign army that burns through men by the tens of thousands every month, then stiffs the families when the bills come due.
Open borders of information work both ways. When a regime that cannot sustain its own losses starts shopping for Western recruits online, the ads are not strength. They are a balance sheet written in other people’s sons.
