The Kremlin’s veteran hero cult stops at the workplace door

In Vladimir Putin's Russia, veterans who fought in Ukraine are elevated to hero status, with the potential to join the country's ruling class. During his 2024 address to the Federal Assembly, Putin referred to participants in the "special military operation" as Russia's "true elite" and urged them to take leading roles in government, business, and education.

This sentiment is reinforced by the Time of Heroes program, which promises more than 44,000 applicants but selects only 83. While the program can create exemplars, it struggles to reintegrate a larger group. Russia's recruitment strategy relies on "deathonomics," offering high salaries, bonuses, and compensation to enlistees, especially from poorer regions.

However, the three-part bargain - money, public honor, and civilian employment - is not something the Kremlin can simply announce. The experiment conducted between May and August 2025 tested how employers responded to a CV line indicating military service. Of the 120 fictitious applications, 120 real vacancies were reviewed, with men aged 25 to 35, similar education and work experience.

Applicants with voluntary war service received 33 callbacks, a rate of 36.7%, compared to 55.0% for those with mandatory conscription. This discovery suggests that the state's heroic signal does not carry as much weight as employers might hope in the hiring process. While the Kremlin's language merges different service routes into the "participants in the SVO" category, employers appear to maintain a distinction between obligation and agency.

Factors such as perceived exposure to violence, adjustment difficulties, or ideological motives may influence hiring decisions. The Russian government's attempts to facilitate reintegration through employment plans and regional quotas show a recognition of the challenge, but the patchwork approach indicates that work is seen as a central reintegration problem rather than an automatic reward for service.