As The Guardian reports, the Russian military has launched a video campaign to recruit more professional soldiers to fight in Ukraine, urging those interested to prove they are “real men” and lead monotonous civilian lives on the battlefield.

Following heavy losses on the battlefield, Moscow is seeking to recruit up to 400,000 volunteers to counter a long-awaited Ukrainian counteroffensive, according to British military intelligence.

The video has now been shared in the main Russian social networks.

Men are offered to choose a different life path and sign a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense for a salary of 204,000 rubles ($2,495) per month.

“Is this the path you choose?”

The video begins with a man in military uniform with a machine gun in a supermarket.

Then the man is introduced in the form of a supermarket security guard with the question: “Is this the security guard you dreamed of becoming?”.

Later in the video, the man walks through the fog with other soldiers on the battlefield.

He is then introduced as a gym instructor helping a client lift weights.

“Is this really your strength?”, the viewer is asked before switching to a taxi driver who is driving along with the question: “This is the way you choose?”.

Later, the taxi driver turns into a soldier on the battlefield.

“You are a man. Be united,” the ad concludes.

“Your country needs you!”

Due to the lack of troops, Russia is trying to recruit new forces, including using the Vkontakte accounts of libraries and even kindergartens, writes “Nova Gazeta”, writes “Ukrainian Pravda”.

Last week, Vladimir Putin signed into law an electronic subpoena law that makes it much easier to challenge Russians to war. But the Kremlin is not yet ready to announce a second wave of mobilization, so the authorities are trying to solve the shortage on the front lines with the help of contract workers and volunteers.

“In Vkontakte, we found 75,000 ads with calls to go to the front, and 70% of them appeared in the last two months. “Posts are published in the accounts of hospitals, employment centers, libraries and even kindergartens,” Novaya Gazeta writes.

Almost 90% of all contract announcements are from the Ministry of Defense, but there are also posts about the search for volunteers and recruitment for the private military company “Wagner”.

“Contract service – the choice of real men!”, “Military service – stability and confidence in life!” and “Your country needs you!”.

Thousands of posts

“Novaya Gazeta” found almost 20,000 advertising posts in news publications, as well as in job search groups.

At least 650 vacancies are posted on HeadHunter, a popular job search site in Russia. The rest of the announcements were published in groups without a clear theme.

Speculations that the Russian army would run out of reserves appeared as early as last fall, but later the ministry headed by Sergei Shoigu threw conscripts into battle as part of the “partial” mobilization that Vladimir Putin ordered in September. 21.

However, these new forces suffered heavy casualties during the winter months, when the Russian army unsuccessfully attempted to capture the city of Bakhmut, as well as launching other smaller-scale offensives against the towns around it.

In these conditions, rumors are increasingly persistent that Putin is preparing to start a new wave of mobilization, even if it will not be officially announced, but implemented at the local level by the Russian military leadership and governors of various regions.

Last Friday, Putin unveiled a law making it easier for Russians to join the armed forces after the corresponding bill was passed by the Russian parliament as an emergency.

A person about the losses of Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit a few days ago to his command in southern Ukraine offered a new potential indication of the heavy casualties suffered by the invading forces, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said in its latest assessment.

The ministry in London, in its assessment based on British intelligence reports, referred to a press release issued by the Kremlin on Tuesday about the visit allegedly made by Putin, noting that it described the trip as a trip to the Dnipro Group. Forces”.

British military analysts note that this is one of the first Russian references to the existence of the “Dnipro Force Group” (GFN), with the military command in Moscow using the term “force group” in a very specific way to refer to a large operational formation organized to carry out combat operations tasks

At the start of the invasion launched by Putin, Russian forces were organized into force groups that corresponded to the military districts they belonged to in Russia, such as Force Groups West or Center.

Similarity to the German army during the invasion of Russia

“The existence of the Dnipro group of forces indicates that the initial organization of the forces evolved, probably due to heavy losses. The mission of the GFN is likely to be to protect the southern sector of the occupied zone, and especially the southwestern flank, which is currently limited by the Dnipro River,” concludes the British assessment of the war in Ukraine.

Interestingly, a similar situation occurred during the Second World War with the German army during the invasion of Russia, which was initially organized into three large groups of forces: North, Center and South. After crushing defeats with heavy casualties, beginning in the winter of 1942 and especially in 1943, some Wehrmacht groups began to rename themselves after the local front on which they fought.

In the final stages of the war, some corps of the German army began to be named even after the names of the commanders who led them, for example, “Steiner’s Army Detachment”, which was tasked with breaking through the encirclement of Berlin in the last days of the war. conflict.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi, as well as military officials in Kyiv, have repeatedly justified their refusal to order the withdrawal from Bakhmut, the epicenter of fighting in Ukraine for months, by the fact that Russian forces are suffering huge losses compared to Ukrainian ones. the battle is here.

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