CNN
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Moscow has begun a brand new marketing campaign to encourage Russians to enlist within the armed forces and combat in Ukraine, regardless of the Kremlin having denied needing extra recruits.
In an try to draw extra volunteers to the entrance, Russian propaganda movies posted on social networks up to now few days try to attraction to Russian males by the narratives of patriotism, morality and upward social mobility.
One of many movies, posted on December 14, incorporates a younger man who is selecting to combat as an alternative of partying along with his male pals after which surprises everybody by shopping for himself a automobile with the cash he constructed from combating on a army contract.
In one other video, posted on December 15, the previous girlfriend of a soldier is newly impressed along with his braveness and begs him to get again collectively together with her. An extra instance exhibits a middle-aged man leaving the manufacturing unit job that doesn’t pay him sufficient to signal a army contract and go to the entrance.
One other of the movies exhibits a gaggle of 30-something, well-off Russian males loading a automobile as they’re requested by aged girls the place are they going. One of many males replies: “To Georgia. Without end.” When one girl spills a bag of groceries, the boys simply get into the automobile and depart, as an alternative of serving to, whereas youthful Russian males rush to choose up the groceries. “The boys have left, the boys stayed,” one of many aged girls concludes.
Lots of the movies painting the struggle as an escape for males from a bleak every day actuality of ingesting vodka, poverty and helplessness. In the meantime, stories and complaints of shortages of provisions and gear within the Russian army proceed to emerge.
Throughout a gathering with moms of the mobilized in November, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that it was higher to be killed combating for the motherland than to drink oneself to loss of life on vodka.
In late September, Putin introduced a “partial” army mobilization which noticed greater than 300,000 individuals throughout Russia mobilized as its struggle in Ukraine didn’t make progress. The precise variety of Russian troopers killed and injured combating in Ukraine has not been made public.
Hundreds of males have fled Russia in an effort to keep away from being conscripted, and fears of a second mobilization within the New Yr are mounting.
Earlier this month, addressing a information convention after a summit of Eurasian international locations in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Putin tried to reassure the general public that there have been no plans for added mobilization.
Requested by a reporter what elements might name for a brand new spherical of mobilization, Putin stated: “There are not any such elements as we speak, we aren’t discussing them. I advised you, 300,000 have been referred to as up as a part of the mobilization. Let me repeat as soon as once more 150,000 (have been deployed to Ukraine). Of these, a little bit greater than half are in fight models.”
Questioned about stories of continuous army gear shortages on the entrance traces, Putin stated he was working intently with the Russian protection ministry and that the problem was being resolved.
