Russian social media circulates soldier recruitment videos despite Putin denying army expansion

The Kremlin-controlled social media platform called ‘VKontakte’ has been circulating recruitment videos encouraging young men to join the Russian army to fight in the Ukraine war.

This comes after the Kremlin made an announcement saying that Russia doesn’t require any more recruits.

To attract more men to join the army, the videos posted on social networks in the past few days run on the narratives of patriotism, morality and upward social mobility.

It is, however, unclear whether or not these videos are state-sponsored.

What do the videos show?

A video posted on 14 December shows a young man choosing to fight in the war instead of partying. Later, to everyone’s surprise, the man buys a car for himself with the money he earned from fighting on a military contract.

The very next day, another video was posted on VKontakte featuring an ex-girlfriend of a soldier who was impressed by his courage in fighting in the war and later begs him to get back together with her.

On Vkontakte, the videos were posted on a group called “I’m mobilised.” By the looks of the videos, it seems that Russia seeks to portray the war as an escape from the everyday mundane lives of drinking vodka, poverty and helplessness that many Russians lead.

In November, Russian president Vladimir Putin, during one of his meetings with the mothers of those who are already mobilised, said that it is better to die in a war than by drinking excessive vodka at parties, according to a report by CNN.

Putin says no need for additional recruits

Earlier this month, during an address to a news conference following the Eurasian countries summit, Putin reassured that as of now the country doesn’t require additional mobilisation.

When asked what factors could come into play for a new round of mobilisation, Putin said, “There are no such factors today, we are not discussing them. I told you, 300,000 were called up as part of the mobilization. Let me repeat once again 150,000 (have been deployed to Ukraine). Of those, a little more than half are in combat units.”

With inputs from agencies.

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