War in Ukraine: the Russian army tries by all means to recruit new soldiers
Russian national guards walk under a building bearing the Z, the symbol of the Russian army on May 5, 2022, in Sevastopol, Crimea.
PA
Text by: Anastasia Becchio
6 mins
Publicity campaigns, messages on television, announcements on job sites with attractive salaries and recruitment in prisons: the authorities are trying to attract new forces into the ranks of the military.
Vladimir Poutine refusing, for the moment, to order the general mobilization, it is necessary to find other means to supply in men the troops in Ukraine.
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The
Superjob.ru
site , the largest job search platform in Russia, displays 20,060 offers in the military sector.
If, most of the time, the salaries correspond to those offered in peacetime, some advertisements offer salaries of up to 200,000 rubles per month (more than 3,200 euros) for a simple position as a soldier, with many social benefits. .
The interactive portal of the commission of labor and employment of the Khabarovsk region displays 356 vacancies for military personnel for unit No. 51460.
This unit is home to the 64th Motorized Rifle Brigade, suspected of war crimes in Buch, near kyiv - accusations that Moscow rejects, citing a set-up by the kyiv authorities.
The announcements do not specify whether new recruits will be sent to Ukraine.
But
“
all these job offers tell us that the army does not have enough people.
On the one hand, there are the losses, the dead and the wounded.
There are also people who leave the army.
All this creates a recruitment problem
,”
says Pavel Luzin, a military expert based in St. Petersburg.
Replenish the forces
The Russian Ministry of Defense has not updated the figure of Russian losses since March 25: 1,351 dead.
Based on publicly available data, Russian online media
Mediazona
and the
BBC
's Russian Service put the number of Russian soldiers killed at 4,760 between February 24 and July 15.
This exceeds the losses of the Russian federal forces during the three years of the second Chechen war between 1999 and 2002. For its part, the general staff evokes 37,000 Russian soldiers killed, while the British Ministry of Defense advances the figure of 20,000.
If we count the dead, the missing, but also the wounded,
"
the Russian army seriously needs to rebuild its forces, to maintain them at least at the level of the beginning of the invasion, but also to carry out offensive operations more powerful
”
, notes Kirill Mikhailov, analyst at Conflict Intelligence Team, an organization founded by independent Russian investigators, joined in Ukraine.
Breaches of contracts
In May Vladimir Putin signed a law raising the age limit for joining the army from 40 to 50 years.
The balance was also revalued to 170,000 monthly rubles: 2900 euros.
One of the most common ways to hire new soldiers is to have conscripts who have just completed their military service sign a contract.
But since they are better informed about the situation in Ukraine, they are not very inclined to commit to going to fight, explains Kirill Martynov.
In addition, the cases of people who do not wish to renew their contract with the army are increasing, notes the expert.
“
According to our data, 20 to 40% of contract servicemen returning from Ukraine refuse to return.
It's a lot, it's comparable,
".
►Also listen: War in Ukraine: "The Russian army is probably revising its objectives downwards"
Recently, 150 servicemen returned from Ukraine to Buryatia after breaking their contracts.
This region of Eastern Siberia, neighboring Mongolia, has paid a heavy price for this Russian military operation in Ukraine: 251 soldiers from this republic have been killed since the start of the Russian invasion, according to a count by the Free Buriatya foundation. , which assists in their steps, the soldiers who wish to return from Ukraine.
The NGO receives many requests.
“
As soon as the information on these 150 soldiers was made public, our legal department was overwhelmed with requests, because in my opinion, no one wants to fight and die for the Russian world, when we ourselves are victims. of xenophobia in our country ,
”
says Victoria Maladeeva.
Buriatia, which extends between Lake Baikal and Mongolia is one of the poorest regions of Russia.
Young people often have no other prospect than to enlist in the army.
“
The authorities know that they are more likely to attract young people from these poor regions, because there is no work.
On the Mongolian border, we have a town that hosts the 37th motorized brigade.
This unit is, in fact, almost the only employer in the city ,
”
continues Victoria Maladeeva.
However, these inexperienced young people, assigned to the lower ranks of the Russian army, are also the most fragile.
“
We have the example of two volunteers who signed their contract in April and who were killed in early May in Ukraine.
And others enlisted in May and died in early June.
They didn't last a month ,
”
the representative of the Free Buriatya Foundation said indignantly.
Russian soldiers patrol an area of the Azovstal complex in Mariupol on Monday, June 13, 2022. AP
Recruitment of prisoners
Among the new recruitment platforms, the British Ministry of Defense evokes cases of "recruitment of personnel in Russian prisons for the private military company Wagner", a sign, according to him,
"if the information is confirmed, that the army Russian has difficulty replacing the large number of victims
.
The NGO
Gulagu.net
has received dozens of messages since the end of June reporting recruitment campaigns among common law prisoners, carried out by the private Wagner militia in several penal colonies in Saint Petersburg, Tver, Ryazan, Smolensk, Voronezh and Lipetsk.
“We are talking about 200 prisoners who have already been sent to Rostov on the Don, says Vladimir Ossetchkine at the head of the NGO, joined in France, where he is a refugee.
"The situations are different from one penal colony to another
: in some, there are 20-30 volunteers, but in one of the colonies, we were given a figure which seems incredible of 300 prisoners who would have liked to leave to fight
".
Detainees who have no military experience are invited to demine or rebuild areas occupied by the Russian army.
Those who have already served in the past are offered 200,000 rubles (about 3,200 euros) and a reduced sentence to go and fight for six months in Ukraine.
►Also listen: War in Ukraine: who are the Russian soldiers sent to the front?
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