Usually thought if interest is waning then it's typical for the financial incentive to be increased rather than cut so it may allude to some financial issues.

It seems that Russia has so many factors against them at this point.  The pay to the soldiers is only the latest. 

I was going to ask you about something else though if you wouldn't mind.  I was wondering about the Tomahawks that zelensky was asking Trump for.  Why would zelensky even need Tomahawks if the Flamingo is good enough? Ukraine is going to be steadily making the flamingos anyway.  Perhaps there are capabilities that the tomahawk has that the flamingo can't perform?

Right, and it's basically the first indication that Russia isn't willing to just throw $$$ at a problem, that there is finally a limit to the financial madness that putin has brought.     

I think they've reached a point where even a substantial increase wouldn't do much anymore to incentivize more people from those regions to sign up.

Keep in mind that some of those have a significant non-Russian population, especially in Tatarstan and Chuvashia (just ~30% Russian, 50%+ Indigenous People by 2019 census), but also Mari El to a lesser degree (only 50% Russian), and I doubt those non-Russians are very fond to join up for a very Russian war either way. As for Belgorod, they got counter-invaded twice and are probably the most weary of the war in Russia as many also got evacuated twice.

So yeah, I think the Kremlin realized that throwing money at the problem simply won't solve it in those regions anymore and cut their losses.

New Kings and Generals video about the War in Ukraine:

I really hope that counter-offensive is true and would shock Russian troops. But like them I fear they don't have the manpower to do so...

just please show russia that ukraine can and will fight back hard, and i know that they'll try to exploit the russians' lack of fuel

Looks like losses are ramping up again for Russia.

If this keeps up while the recruitments are dropping then Putin may be forced to use mass mobilisation of reservists to fill the ranks, which is very unpopular among the Russian public. This would be another blow after the rising economic woes of Russia against their war against Ukraine.

Putin's army can't do it anymore, they have too many problems now