What a man is worth to one of Russia's big war-recruiting firms depends on where he's registered: the commission is 150k rubles in Yaroslavl vs. 1M for a Muscovite. An iStories correspondent took one of these jobs for a new investigation. https://meduza.io/en/feature/2026/08/27/istories-investigation-shows-how-russia-recruits-soldiers-for-its-war-against-ukraine-private-firms-targeted-telegram-ads-and-phone-numbers-bought-for-as-little-as-12-cents-apiece