Russia launches a new campaign to try to entice men to fight in Ukraine
TALLINN, Estonia — Advertisements promise cash bonuses and enticing benefits. Recruiters are making cold calls to eligible men. Enlistment offices are working with universities and social service agencies to lure students and the unemployed.
A new campaign is underway this spring across Russia, seeking recruits to replenish its troops for the war in Ukraine.
As fighting grinds on in Ukrainian battlegrounds like Bakhmut and both sides prepare for counteroffensives that could cost even more lives, the Kremlin’s war machine badly needs new recruits.
A mobilization in September of 300,000 reservists — billed as a “partial” call-up — sent panic throughout the country, since most men under 65 are formally part of the reserve. Tens of thousands fled Russia rather than report to recruiting stations.
The Kremlin denies that another call-up is planned for what it calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine, now more than a year old.
But amid widespread uncertainty of whether such a move will eventually happen, the government is trying to persuade men to volunteer, either at makeshift recruiting centers popping up in various regions or with phone calls from enlistment officials. That way, it can “avoid declaring a formal second mobilization wave” after the first one proved so unpopular, according to a recent report by the U.S.-based think tank Institute for the Study of War.
The Ukrainian military’s surrender hotline, dubbed ‘I Want to Live,’ is enticing some Russian soldiers to quit the battlefield as the war drags on.
One Muscovite told the Associated Press that his employer, a state-funded organization, gathered up the military registration cards of all male employees of fighting age and said it would get them deferments. But he said the move still sent a wave of fear through him.
“It makes you nervous and scared — no one wants to all of a sudden end up in a war with a rifle in their hands,” said the resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared reprisal. “The special operation is somewhat dragging on, so any surprises from the Russian authorities can be expected.”
It’s been more than a week since he handed in his card, he said, and exemptions usually get resolved in a day or two, heightening his anxiety.
Russian media report that men across the country are receiving summonses from enlistment offices. In most of those cases, men were simply asked to update their records; in others, they were ordered to take part in military training.
Russia has issued a sharp warning that the West risks further escalation after the U.K. said it would supply Ukraine with uranium-based ammunition.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last week that serving summonses to update records in enlistment offices is “usual practice” and a “continued undertaking.”
Other unconfirmed media reports say authorities have told regional governments to recruit a certain number of volunteers. Some officials announced setting up recruitment centers with the goal of getting men to sign contracts that enable them to be sent into combat as professional soldiers.
Ads have appeared on government websites and on the social media accounts of state institutions and organizations, including libraries and high schools.
One of them, posted by a municipal administration in the western Yaroslavl region, promised a onetime bonus of about $3,800 to sign up and, if the person is sent to Ukraine, a monthly salary of up to $2,500, plus about $100 a day for “involvement in active offensive operations” and $650 “for each kilometer of advancement within assault teams.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced plans to station tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus.
The ad said the enlisting soldier would also get tax and loan repayment breaks, preferential university admission status for his children, generous compensation for his family if he is wounded or killed in action and the status of a war veteran, which carries even more perks.
In the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, officials asked universities, colleges and vocational schools to advertise for recruits on their websites, said Sergei Chernyshov, founder of a private vocational school there.
Chernyshov posted the ad on his social media account “so that everyone knows what our City Hall is up to,” but he told the AP that he doesn’t plan to put it on the school website. “It’s weird” to target vocational school students, he said.
Other efforts include enlistment officials meeting with college students and unemployed men, or phoning men to volunteer.
As Russia’s military performance weakens, a notorious mercenary group, long part of the Ukraine fight, steps into spotlight.
A Muscovite who spoke on condition of anonymity for his own safety said that he received such a call and was surprised at how polite it was: “After my ‘no,’ there were no threats or [attempts to] convince me — [just] ‘Thanks, goodbye.’”
There have been only isolated cases of enlistment officials really pressuring men to sign up, said Grigory Sverdlin, founder of a group called Go by the Forest, which helps men avoid mobilization.
The group gets up to 100 messages a day from men seeking advice on dealing with summonses or enlistment officials, he said, compared with dozens per day in recent months. In most cases, the officials wanted to update their records with addresses and phone numbers, and they might try to recruit men during that process.
But Sverdlin said some cases stand out.
In phone calls home, Russian soldiers in Ukraine tell loved ones of life on the front, including the killing of civilians and the looting of homes.
In the Vologda region, about 250 miles north of Moscow, the group received messages saying that almost everyone going to the enlistment office after receiving a summons “is forced to sign a paper barring them from leaving the region,” he said.
Lawyer Alexei Tabalov, who runs the Conscript’s School legal aid group, believes there’s nothing unusual in authorities handing out summonses now. Some of the notices are traditionally served before Russia’s spring conscription draft, scheduled to begin Saturday for those eligible for mandatory service.
All Russian men from age 18 to 27 must serve one year in the military, but a large share avoid the draft for health reasons or get student deferments. The share of men who avoid the draft is particularly big in Moscow and other major cities, and many simply evade enlistment officials bearing conscription summonses.
Tabalov said that men have reported going to enlistment offices to update their records and encounter officials who “beat around the bush and promote the idea of signing the contract, talk about how one should love their motherland and defend it.”
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He doubts that anything could make volunteering attractive after 13 months of a war that has killed and wounded tens of thousands.
“People already understand what it means to sign a contract,” he said. “Those who got burned once are unlikely to fall into the same trap.”
The current recruitment campaign is similar to one enacted last summer before the September call-up, said Kateryna Stepanenko, a Russia analyst with the Institute for the Study of War.
Back then, authorities also used financial incentives, and various volunteer battalions were formed, but the effort clearly wasn’t successful, because Putin eventually turned to the partial mobilization.
Slovakia says the first four of 13 Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets that it decided to give Ukraine have been safely handed over to Kyiv’s air force.
Whether this one will succeed is unclear.
“They’ve already recruited a significant portion of people that were financially incentivized last summer. And they struggled to do so last year,” Stepanenko said.
The current recruitment effort shows the military’s awareness of manpower needs in Ukraine.
“What the mobilization campaign of 300,000 servicemen told us is that it’s not enough to form a sufficient strike group for Russia to push forward with its offensive operations,” she said.
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