For Russian soldiers it's quite true, most of them, after the great invasion of Verkhnii Lars in September 2022,

sign a contract, and lucrative at that.

Mobilization is greatly quieted down. Borders aren’t locked for males, although restrictions concerning travels abroad for state workers and bureaucrats tend to strengthen with each successive year. I predict that, at some point, practice of issuing and prolongation of the foreign passports will be curted further by Russia for men of conscript age living abroad, but not totally stopped, like Ukraine has recently done. Annexed Donbass provinces, as usual, provide a graphic exception: nullum crimen sine lege, in the sense of total lawlessness toward males both conscripted and catched after desertion. Recently, border control zone with regulated access has been reinstated (for reasons moot) between DPR/LPR and Russia proper.

For Ukrainians, money means not so much and talks not so eloquently, because the great majority of them is drafted, often brutally, while Ukrainian border service turned into a Prohibition-level speakeasy.

A small part receives up to USD2.5K per month, though more often significantly less, and those who are relieved from the frontline due to ill health and injuries (but not from AFU, of course!) receive as little as USD15 per month.

One may ask whether Western aid could be distributed with a little skew toward their needs; meanwhile in Antarctica, penguins stand brave like Ukraine, financed better than Oswald Cobblepot’s gangsters.