contraktnik

English

Etymology

From Russian контра́ктник (kontráktnik) Literally, “contractor, contractee”. From контракт (kontrakt, “contract”)+-ник (-nik, “profession, performer”). Analyzable as contract +‎ -nik.

Noun

contraktnik (plural contraktniks or contraktniki)

(military) A voluntary professional soldier of Russia under contract (not a conscript soldier)
- 1995, “Chechnya: Still bleeding”, in The Economist, volume 335, number 7918, page 45:
  The contraktniki are implicated in the worst brutalities. […] On the night of April 7th the contraktniki went into the village. By the next morning over 200 people were dead.
- 2000 October 15, John Sweeney, “Cries from Putin's torture pit: One year on, John Sweeney returns to Chechnya to speak to survivors of horrific abuse inflicted in a Russian prison camp”, in The Observer, London, page 24:
  One witness who had been held in a pit last month said: 'It was freezing. At night they would chuck in smoke canisters and let off CS gas. They threw stones down on us. It was the contraktniki – mercenaries – who did it.'
- 2004 May 11, “Prisoners of the Caucasus”, in The Guardian:
  Underpinning that power was a reign of terror the like of which Chechens had not seen since the days of Stalin. Even the Russian contraktniki, or freelance fighters, were not as feared as Mr Kadyrov's private army of kidnappers, torturers and executioners were.
- 2022 April 2, Mark Urban, The heavy losses of an elite Russian regiment in Ukraine (Newsnight), via BBC:
  The 331st was also a showcase for Russia's policy of replacing national service soldiers with contraktniki - professionals under contract. It is understandable why the generals should have given it an important role in the invasion.

Coordinate terms

Related terms