A series of anonymous ads urging Russians to join the country’s armed forces to fight in Ukraine has also angered Russian military bloggers, The Moscow Times reports.

The ad first appeared last week, showing Russians of modest means enlisting in the armed forces for financial rewards promised by the government.

In one of the most discussed commercials, the grandson joins the army so that the grandfather does not sell the old Lada due to poverty.

The ad caused a wave of irony on social media and was widely criticized, including on Russian channels, recalling a report broadcast on the eve of the war by Channel One, which talked about the “advantages” enjoyed by Russians who lost their sons in the war, among them new Lada car.

Another ad that appeared last week tells the story of a father who decides to join the Russian army in order to buy his teenage daughter a new phone:

In another ad, a man decides to enlist in order to escape from loan sharks. “You have two options. The first thing is to protect yourself from collectors. The second is to serve the Motherland. And remember: when you protect your Motherland, it protects you,” says the announcer of this advertisement.

In another ad shared on Russian social networks, a married woman offers to reconcile with her ex-boyfriend and start a family after seeing him in uniform.

“Become a volunteer! Change your life!” — it is noted in most of the ads that they promise payments above the average salary in Russia, freedom from debt, social status and other incentives of a financial nature.

The recruitment announcements caused consternation among war supporters

The Moscow Times notes that Russian military bloggers, who have hundreds of thousands of followers on Telegram, criticized the ad, saying the emphasis on financial motivations for joining the army betrays what they call “nobler” ideological goals.

The fact that they were created anonymously immediately sparked a wave of speculation, with some claiming that it was a campaign organized by Ukraine to discredit the Russian armed forces.

“Such spitting on our people should be considered a crime,” said TV presenter Andriy Medvedev on his Telegram channel on Tuesday.

But these suspicions were quickly dispelled, the actors who starred in the commercials were identified as Russians. They said they were paid 8,000 rubles ($113) to make them, but did not say what the purpose of the campaign was.

Reporters from iStories, a Russian investigative website, discovered that the ad had originally appeared on a little-known VKontakte page, Russia’s equivalent of Facebook, and that the page and video had been removed after going viral.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday approved Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s proposal to increase the number of Russian Armed Forces by an additional 350,000 soldiers.

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