A man studies a leaflet given by young woman helping promote Russian Army recruitment in Moscow<\/p>\n
Readers can safely ignore U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency claims below that the Russian army\u2019s recruitment drive is to replace \u201c43,000 Russians\u201d killed so far in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency have proven their reliability with earlier claims about Saddam Hussein\u2019s Weapons of Mass Destruction<\/a>. In other words like Saddam\u2019s WMD, this is likely yet more disinformation.<\/p>\n Add to that more reliable assessments from former UN Weapons Inspector and US Marine Intelligence officer Scott Ritter and retired U.S. Army colonel and military consultant Douglas Macgregor, and its clear that the number of Russians killed is a fraction of the 43,000 claimed.<\/p>\n So why has the Russian Army embarked on a campaign to recruit an additional 400,000 men? We would suggest that this is in preparation of an escalation of the war, which will no longer be confined to Ukraine but could soon spread beyond to encompass large swathes of Western Europe.<\/p>\n This has been echoed and underlined more ominously by two things:<\/p>\n First by the predictions of Alois Irlmaier<\/a> and more recently by warnings from former president and current Vice Chairman of Russia\u2019s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev<\/a>.<\/p>\n Russia has finally realized that the West wants to see it destroyed and dismembered into a series of smaller states that can be more easily controlled. As far as Moscow is concerned, the only way to prevent this happening is to go on the offensive and take the war west instead.<\/p>\n Finally, most of the 400,000 recruited will have already completed basic military training as conscripts. So after some initial reintroduction training to get them combat ready they will be ready for the front line in two to three months. So Russia could be ready for large scale offensive operations against the West by summer 2023.<\/p>\n The Russian military has launched a video campaign to lure more professional soldiers to fight in Ukraine which challenges those interested to show they are “a real man” and swap what it casts as hum-drum civilian life for the battlefield.<\/p>\n The ad, set to stirring music, follows a report from British military intelligence and Russian media reports that suggest Moscow is seeking to recruit up to 400,000 professional soldiers – on a volunteer basis – to bolster its forces in Ukraine.<\/p>\n The ad has so far been released on major Russian social networking sites.<\/p>\n Russia, which says it is prosecuting what it calls “a special military operation,” does not disclose full casualty figures. But up to 43,000 Russians have been killed in the war so far, according to a recently leaked<\/a> estimate from the U.S. Defence Intelligence Agency.<\/p>\n It estimated up to 17,500 Ukrainians had been killed too.<\/p>\n The ad, which invites men to sign a contract with the Russian Defence Ministry for a salary starting at 204,000 roubles ($2,495) a month, shows a man in supermarket dressed in military uniform holding a heavy machine gun. He is then shown in the uniform of a security guard with the question:<\/p>\n “Is this the kind of defender you dreamt of becoming?”<\/p>\n Next in the video, a man is walking through the fog with other soldiers on what looks like a battlefield. He is then shown as a gym instructor helping a client lift weights.<\/p>\n “Is this really where your strength lies?” the video asks, before cutting to a taxi driver taking a client’s fare who then transforms into a soldier on the battlefield.<\/p>\n “You’re a real man. Be one,” says the ad.<\/p>\n After launching a partial mobilisation drive in September which prompted tens of thousands of Russian men to flee the country to avoid being drafted, the authorities are playing down the possibility of a second mobilisation call – despite a move<\/a> to introduce electronic call up papers to clamp down on draft dodgers – and are seeking to recruit volunteers instead.<\/p>\n Posters seeking professional soldiers have sprung up in the Russian capital in recent weeks declaring that “Our Profession is to defend the Motherland.”<\/p>\n The posters, which say the army is looking for gunners, sappers, military medics, drivers and tank commanders, promise potential recruits “respect, an honourable profession and decent pay.”<\/p>\nRussia expands war recruitment drive with video ad calling for ‘real’ men<\/strong><\/h1>\n
Andrew Osborne \u2013 Reuters April 20, 2023<\/strong><\/h2>\n