Russia uses kindergartens and schools to call recruits to go to front line

Journalists found advertisements for contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defence in kindergartens and schools, and also counted how many advertisements the Kremlin published on social media.

Source: Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta Evropa

Details: The media believes that the Kremlin does not yet plan to announce mobilisation, betting on the involvement of volunteers and contractors.

In media profiles of the regional government, journalists counted at least 19,000 ads about contract military service, and almost 4,000 more were found in public budget institutions and education institutions, including schools and kindergartens. In the latter, potential volunteers are lured with benefits for children, such as free education in universities and tickets to summer camps.

In VKontakte (Russian online social media – ed.), journalists found 75,000 advertisements urging people to go to the front, while 70% of them have appeared since the beginning of March. Almost 90% of all ads are the advertisements for contracts from the Ministry of Defence, another 2,500 are posts about the search for volunteers and recruitment at the Wagner private military company.

According to Novaya Gazeta, among the most popular slogans were "Contract service – the choice of real men!", "Military service – stability and confidence in life!" and "Your country needs you!".

In addition, Novaya Gazeta found almost 20,000 advertising posts in city and news publications, as well as in job search groups. In particular, 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 topic.

Journalists note that mobile campaigning points have appeared in Russian cities, and employment centres have intensively begun to suggest that the unemployed sign contracts with the Ministry of Defence.

Wagner private military company is also recruiting actively. At the beginning of March, Yevgeny Prigozhin announced that the Wagner Group had opened centres for recruiting mercenaries in 42 Russian cities.

The VKontakte community of the Wagner Group reports that the company's employees plan to visit more than 36,000 settlements in April alone.

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