Most Russian soldiers at the current moment are being hired by contract, since the Russian army does pay very well if you survived on the frontlines. I think that it was around 22k USD or something @Cryotron himself may know better but I've heard something like that.
Obviously when you die you won't get paid neither will your family.
Last month ukrainians eliminated 30k russian soldiers.
Most of the soldiers are there for the money.
Russia's been keeping everyone poor while some 20 to 25% gets to live comfortably with good conditions, so they've got a lot of poor disposable men ready to risk their lives for the master of Kremlin Putin.