From state heroes to social pariahs? Civilian hiring and voluntary service in Russia’s war in Ukraine

Abstract Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has produced a politically charged cohort of veterans whom the state publicly celebrates as heroes. Yet in a context where even the word “war” can be criminalised, how civilians actually regard different categories of service is difficult to observe through conventional measures. This research note uses labour-market behaviour as a window into those politically sensitive distinctions. Combining a correspondence audit—a standard tool in discrimination research—with a Bayesian sequential design that learns efficiently under real-world constraints, I sent 60 matched pairs of fictitious résumés to vacancies on major Russian job platforms in 2025. Within each pair, one applicant signalled voluntary contract service in the war, the other only routine conscription. Applicants foregrounding voluntary service received roughly a third fewer callbacks (Δ=0.18, 95% credible interval above zero), with consistent results across Bayesian and frequentist specifications. The design cannot identify the mechanism behind this penalty—employers may be reacting to perceived trauma, discipline concerns, reputational risk, or quieter political distancing from the war. But the finding is clear: in this platform-based segment of Russia’s civilian labour market, signalling voluntary participation in the war reduced employer interest rather than enhancing it. If the state’s heroic narrative translated straightforwardly into civilian life, the opposite should hold.