Putin ups the ante: Record-breaking recruitment drive targets $25K soldiers

"The Russian authorities have launched an unprecedented advertising campaign for contract services following the Ukrainian Armed Forces' offensive in the Kursk region," reports the agency Agenstwo.Nowosi. Analysis shows this is the largest advertising campaign since the beginning of the war, encouraging people to join the army.

The agency notes that the campaign's intensity increased after the Ukrainian Armed Forces' offensive in the Kursk region and the acceleration of the Russian army's attack in the Donetsk region. "In both operations, Russia must acquire new military personnel," it reads.

Advertising posts appear on Telegram, Yandex, VKontakte, and other federal channels. On Telegram alone, the posts have been displayed 13.5 million times in the past month, while the average since the launch of the Russian army's recruitment service was only 2.3 million per month.

The previous record for both the number of views and mentions was in May 2023 when the assault on Bakhmut ended.

"Usually, the main platform for advertising the contract service is the Ministry of Defense channel on Telegram, but in August 2024, a broad campaign was launched on regional channels. The most mentions of the Sluzhbapokontraktu.rf portal appeared on the Magadan Prawda channel, as well as on the channels of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, pro-Russian authorities of cities in the Donetsk region, and partially occupied regions of the Kursk region," writes the agency.

Also, the channel of leading Russian propagandist and presenter Vladimir Solovyov (1.3 million subscribers) began calling for people to go to war. In August, four advertising posts mentioning Sluzhbapokontraktu.rf were published there—in the previous two years, there had been only 10 such announcements.

In August, regional Russian authorities began increasingly using Yandex's social advertising service to advertise the war. The Moscow City Hall ordered such advertisements for the first time, reaching half a million users. The advertisement emphasized a one-time payment of approximately $25,000 and an annual income of approximately $58,000.

The Russian Ministry of Digital Development orders nationwide advertising of the contract service on this platform. From January to September, its advertisements reached 328 million users. The maximum monthly reach of advertisements was achieved in June—57 million views, and in August, 54.7 million views.

Journalist Andrei Zakharov and the human rights project "First Division" discovered that since August, announcements about military service began appearing on the accounts of schools and kindergartens in St. Petersburg.

Media are also involved in the campaign. "Calls to war became more active in propaganda talk shows on federal channels. In programs on Channel One, they started showing commercial blocks calling for an agreement with the Ministry of Defense—unlike other commercial blocks, these are also left in the recordings of broadcasts on the channel's website. Military correspondent Semyon Pegov, who films reports from Ukraine for the program, speaks in the material about the benefits of military service," the agency writes.

Dozens of commercials were also broadcast on the TV channel and regional branches of VGTRK (All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company encompassing all public channels). The reports mention a "rise in interest," which is related to the invasion of Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region.

The agency believes that such intensive advertising campaigns may indicate problems with recruiting new military personnel for the war in Ukraine. The authorities effectively admitted in July that the rate of new military personnel recruitment had fallen by 30 percent. At the end of the month, Vladimir Putin raised the "payment" for going to war; in the poorest regions, the amount increased by 400 percent.