1/ A Russian military recruiter has revealed that army recruitment is far below the needed levels, and that if they don't reach their target "within a month, there will be a second wave of mobilisation." It highlights the Russian Army's continuing manpower problems. ⬇️
2/ As reported by both ASTRA and SOTA, the video (part 1 above, part 2 below) shows a recruitment session at a factory in Togliatti in western Russia. The two speakers tell an audience of workers that they can earn large salaries and bonuses by going to fight in Ukraine.
3/ The workers are assured that they will be given three months' military training and will not immediately be sent to the trenches; both promises are likely untrue. They are told that Togliatti is far below its recruitment quota, with only 10-15% of it having been met so far.
4/ As a result, one of the recruiters says, Togliatti has only "a month or two" to fulfil its quota. Otherwise a second wave of mobilisation will be needed in which everyone liable for service will be called up, with nobody getting a choice about their conditions of service.
5/ As SOTA notes, in March 2023 the Russian government set a goal of recruiting 400,000 contract soldiers (volunteers who have signed military contracts, as opposed to involuntarily mobilised people) across the country.
6/ The recruiter's statement suggests that this target has been missed by a long way, likely causing significant manpower shortages at the front. Together with the very heavy casualties sustained by Russia, it suggests the Russians are having problems replacing their losses.
7/ There have been rumours for some time of a forthcoming second wave of mobilisation, but so far it hasn't happened, probably for political reasons. However, if the situation really is as bad as the recruiter suggests, the government may not have much choice.
1/ 'Patriotic education' has become very profitable in Russia, with the federal and regional governments pouring millions of rubles into propaganda for schoolchildren. An entire industry selling ready-to-use patriotic educational equipment has appeared to capitalise on demand. ⬇️
2/ The 'Not the Norm' Telegram channel documents the Russian state's extensive efforts to imbue children with militaristic propaganda. It highlights how Russian companies are profiting from the requirement to integrate 'patriotic education' with the school curriculum.
3/ In one recent example, pictured above and here, an 'AVK Kremlin' "interactive complex of civic and patriotic education" was installed in the pre-school department of school No. 10 in the Moscow Oblast city of Lyubertsy. It's stylised to look like the Kremlin's Spasskaya Tower.
1/ An apparently leaked memo attributed to former Russian minister Dmitri Rogozin reports major shortcomings in the Russian army's equipment, including artillery far inferior to Western equivalents, a shortage of 152 mm shells, inadequate communications and obsolete UAVs. 📷
2/ The VChK-OGPU Telegram channel has published 4 pages of a memo signed in Rogozin's name and addressed to Anton Vaino, the head of the Russian Presidential Administration. It tackles "problematic issues of organisation and management of combat operations" in the war in Ukraine.
3/ Rogozin served as deputy prime minister in charge of the defence industry from 2011 to 2018, then as head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos until being fired in July 2022. He has since been trying to make himself relevant again, which is likely the context for the memo.
1/ An exchange of fire in the occupied Ukrainian village of Urzuf, in which several Russian soldiers and bystanders were reportedly killed, is said to have been started by drunken Chechen soldiers fighting drunken convict soldiers.
2/ According to the VChK-OGPU Telegram channel, which quotes an apparently leaked report, "drunken criminals of the Ministry of Defence, assigned to a military unit based in Chechnya, and an equally drunken military policeman confronted each other with weapons."
3/ It reports that the incident took place in the morning of 12 August at the Miami Club in Urzuf, near Mariupol.
1/ A training centre in Tambov, Russia, has hung a banner showing a 'new Russian empire' comprising all of central and eastern Europe, a re-divided Germany, Finland, central Asia, Mongolia and Alaska, with the slogan "We will teach you to love the Motherland". ⬇️
2/ The banner has been displayed at Tambov's Training Centre no. 266, which trains tractor, forklift and truck drivers. It shows the old Soviet Union plus the former Warsaw Pact countries, the former Yugoslavia, Greece, Finland, Mongolia and Alaska as part of a unified Russia.
3/ The map seems to be intended to be a mashup of the old USSR plus the old Russian empire, which included Alaska until 1867. However, it's quite unhistorical – Greece and the former Yugoslavia were never under Russian or Soviet rule.
1/ A Russian holidaymaker who incautiously posted footage on social media of air defence missiles being fired over the Kerch Bridge appears to have been dragged off the beach in his shorts to film a public apology for his actions. ⬇️
2/ In the video, a man naming himself as Roman Sergeyevich apologises profusely for "filming the Special Military Operation", pledges his support for the war, and swears he won't do it again.
3/ According to the independent Russian news outlet Rise!, the man was made to apologise by 'activists'. They were likely members of a vigilante pro-Kremlin group which has been working to root out 'disloyalty' in the occupied Crimea.
1/ Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov has been denounced again in another memo to the Kremlin, reportedly written by the political strategist and Duma deputy Oleg Matveychev. It calls Solovyov and his colleague Margarita Simonyan "information structures of Prigozhin". ⬇️
2/ The memo follows one leaked last month which denounced Igor 'Strelkov' Girkin and other "hurrah-patriots" as a threat to the Kremlin. Solovyov's TV show on the Russia-1 channel was denounced for hosting a nightly "gang rape of the authorities".
3/ The new memo, published by the VChK-OGPU Telegram channel, is in much the same vein. It reiterates several of the same points as its predecessor, dismissing liberals, the left and 'hipsters' as possible threats. It calls the ultra-nationalist "patriots" assets of the West.