An information board with the inscription “Defense of the Fatherland is our occupation” at a bus stop, April 13, 2023, Moscow, Russia. The Russian Ministry of Defense has launched a latest recruitment campaign, looking to add 400,000 recruits to the army.
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The Russian Ministry of Defense has stepped up its efforts to recruit men to fight in Ukraine, launching an emotional promoting campaign appealing to Russian masculinity that wants to increase troop numbers in the event of a really protracted conflict.
Advertisements promoting the Russian armed forces have abounded on Russian social networks, billboards and tv in recent days with campaign slogans similar to ‘You might be an actual man. Be him” and “A person’s life is a selection”. recruit a whole bunch of hundreds of soldiers.
The Ministry of Defense is pushing hard for a message on its Telegram channel. On Sunday, he released a video promoting “contractual military service,” which showed pictures of a toddler becoming a person, studying, watching a football game, getting married, after which transforming into images of recruits registering, training, and going to war.
A caption was placed under the film: “Human life is a selection… Every decision affects your fate and that of your family members. But today your selection can affect the fate of the country. Protect your future and your kids’s future,” according to Google’s translation.
One other ad showed men in on a regular basis tasks and situations, and alternatively as soldiers, ending with the phrase, “You might be an actual man. Be him.” One ad, noted Reutersinvited the men to sign a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense for a salary starting at 204,000 Russian rubles ($2,495) a month.
A hotline was arrange for potential recruits, who were promised high pay, social guarantees similar to help finding housing, and “a secure future for the family”.
Russian nationals recruited as a part of the partial mobilization participate in combat training at the training grounds of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) during the Russo-Ukrainian War in Donetsk, Ukraine, October 5, 2022.
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The UK Defense Ministry noted on Sunday that Russia had launched a “pervasive campaign” to attract latest recruits.
“The brand new ads appeal to the male pride of potential recruits by appealing to ‘real men’ in addition to highlighting the financial advantages of joining,” it said via Twitter. Nevertheless, the ministry said it was highly unlikely that the campaign would attract the 400,000 volunteers claimed by the Russian defense ministry.
Regular Russian units and a personal military company called the Wagner Group “are actually competing for a limited pool of combat-aged Russian soldiers,” the British ministry noted.
He added that the authorities are almost actually trying to delay any latest overt mandatory mobilization for so long as possible so as to minimize internal dissent.
The Wagner group was allowed to recruit prisoners from Russian prisons last 12 months, giving freedom to those that had served six months in a personal military company fighting in Ukraine. Nevertheless, this route to recruits has recently been closed.
Commercial in Saint Petersburg, Russia promoting the army. The ad says “serve Russia with real work”.
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The general public recruitment comes as each Russia and Ukraine prepare to step up the fighting and Kiev is about to launch a counter-offensive.
The war is now in its second 12 months and there are few signs of major defeats or victories for either side as Russia tries to consolidate its control over the 4 territories to the east and south it declared “annexed” last 12 months, and Ukraine tries to regain lost ground.
Russia is desperately trying to avoid further forced conscription. The partial mobilization announced last September prompted hundreds of Russian men to flee the country to avoid the draft.
Now, nonetheless, concerted efforts are being made to get men to join, and there’s a conspicuous effort to promote those that have chosen to fight in Ukraine.
On Sunday, the son of Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a Moscow newspaper that he joined the Russian mercenaries last 12 months and fought in Ukraine for about six months.
In an article published Sunday by the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya PravdaNikolai Peskov, 33, said he served as an artilleryman for the Wagner Group, a personal military company that fights alongside regular Russian units in Ukraine.
He served under an assumed name and said the decision to join the Wagner militants was his own initiative, but his father — press secretary of Russian President Vladimir Putin — supported his decision after some misgivings and helped him contact the Wagner Group.
Nikolai Peskov said that he considered the service his “duty”, saying: “I just had to participate, I had to help everyone who was there. I could not sit by and watch my friends and other people go there,” adding that other friends went to Ukraine to fight.
Peskov was awarded a medal for bravery, but declined to say what brave act he and his comrades performed. The top of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said in a Telegram that he had been approached by Senior Peskov, who asked for his son to join the group.
Despite this, some commentators express doubts whether the son of a member of the Russian political elite will fight in Ukraineor that Peskov Jr. did it.
Reuters took notice that in 2022, an associate of imprisoned Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny called Nikolai Peskov and pretended to be a Russian military officer. He demanded that Peskov Jr. report to the draft office, but Nikolai Peskov told him that he was not going anywhere and would solve the situation on one other level, according to a recording of the conversation posted on the Web.