Ukraine is offering° Russian soldiers currently involved in the Russo-Ukrainian War° around $48,000 to throw down their weapons and surrender.
Bryan Caplan sees some issues° though:
- The soldier has to somehow slip away from the Russian army.
- They have to hope the Ukrainians don’t kill them (even after surrendering).
- If Ukraine loses the war they will end up being charged with desertion by the Russians.
- What if Ukraine wins the war but is so broke that they can’t pay the soldiers?
- As part of a peace agreement they could be transferred back to Russia.
So he suggests a slight alteration:
The EU, in cooperation with Ukraine, offers $100,000 plus EU citizenship to any Russian deserter.
But won’t that be too expensive? Apparently not:
Even in a magical scenario where all of the roughly 200,000 Russian troops in the vicinity take the deal, $100,000 per soldier is a mere $20 billion. That’s less than one-fifth of what Germany now plans to spend on defense in 2022 alone.
