Vladimir Putin is using sweet bait to lure the Russians into war. What pseudo-patriotism cannot do, money should do. The Kremlin doesn’t care what happens to the soldiers once they land at the front.
An old man strolls through a small supermarket. Bread, sausages, pasta – that’s all he needs to live. He laboriously adds up the coins from his wallet. But the rubles and kopecks are not enough. The sausages go back to the shelf. What to do? The man sees only one way out of his misery: he has to sell his old car. Saying goodbye to his yellow Moskvitch is difficult for him. 30,000 rubles is all he is offered for the beloved car. “This cart is older than me,” accuses the potential buyer of the retiree’s face.
With tears in his eyes, the desperate man accepts the offer. But lo and behold! Just as he is about to seal the purchase contract, his grandson rushes over. “I signed the contract!” the young man shouts proudly. A patch that reads “Armed Forces of Russia” is emblazoned on his fresh uniform. The Russian flag shines on his sleeve. The freshly minted contract soldier tears up the purchase contract that his grandfather was just about to sign. “Now we definitely won’t get lost again!” announces his grandson with a big smile on his face. The two hugged each other with joy.
This sob scene is the stuff of propaganda in Russia today. The commercial is just one of a number of memorable productions in recent months. The mission is clear: the Russians should be made war palatable. In service at the front, they should see a way out of their misery.
The sweet lure of the Kremlin
The mobilization has become a sobering disaster for the Kremlin. Instead of storming the commissariats, the Russians preferred to storm across the border. Several million young men left the country. The Russian Ministry of Defense is only scratching the urgently needed human supplies for the front. But the meat grinder continues to devour thousands of lives. The unsuspecting recruits are dying like flies. But where do you get a replacement?
While Russia expects a new wave of forced mobilizations any day, the Kremlin is trying a sweet bait: money. What the patriotic spirit cannot do, let the ruble do.
In January Putin signed a decree on “additional social guarantees for military personnel”. According to this, the surviving relatives of the fallen receive a one-time payment of five million rubles. Those who are injured in service at the front are promised three million rubles. which they could not even earn in 15 years.
The sums promised as pay to the mobilized soldiers are also enormous by Russian standards. According to paragraph 3 of Decree No. 647, the minimum monthly payment for the mobilized is 195,000 rubles. Converted it is around 2545 euros. The promised sums increase with the rank. In doing so, catch up Data from the Federal Service for State Statistics an employee in Russia on average 815.29 euros (62,470 rubles, as of October 2022).
Mass weddings in Russia
The wedding boom of the last few months shows how seductive these sums are. After the announcement of the mobilization, the Russian registry offices registered a veritable rush. State television showed mass weddings across the country.
A look at the statistics Buryatia region shows the explosion in marriages. Buryatia is the only Russian region where registry offices publish daily statistics. It shows: Between September 1st and September 21st, an average of 83 weddings per week were registered. On September 21, Putin announced the mobilization – and suddenly 83 weddings per week became 662.
The reason for the boom is simple: money. If a mobilized soldier is injured or dies, his wife can demand payments promised by Putin. Many regions have also announced additional measures to support families.
anti-war protests
It doesn’t matter whether the posters are empty or show asterisks – anyone demonstrating in Russia will be arrested
Marriage as the last good deed
The governor of the Kemerovo region, Sergey Tsivilev, urged the mobilized to marry before going to war. “If you’ve been living with a woman for a long time and you have children, it’s not right,” said the husband of one of Putin’s distant relatives. “You dedicate yourselves to a sacred cause. So you must do everything as Rus should do.”
But this call was not only followed by long-term couples. On social networks, women rushed to find husbands. Her blunt message: if you’re going to die, do one last good deed to make sure someone benefits from your death. Five million rubles is a lot of money.
But only a fraction of the bereaved get the promised sums. The most popular method used by the Department of Defense to avoid paying is by covering up casualty numbers. Instead of declaring the fallen dead, they are listed as missing. A former commander of the Wagner troops recently reported on this practice after he had managed to escape to Norway. (Here you can read more about it.)
Soldiers demand their money
The monthly wages that Vladimir Putin promised the mobilized by decree are not paid either. For this reason, the men who had just been drafted went to the barricades several times in autumn and winter.
“Our state refuses to pay us the sum of 195,000 rubles promised to us by President Vladimir Putin! Why should we fight for this state and leave our families without support?! We refuse and will participate in the ‘special military operation’ fight for justice until we get the money that our government, led by the President of the Russian Federation, has promised us!” demanded recruits from the Russian Republic of Chuvashia last November. (The star reported.)
Such protests have become rarer in recent weeks. But not because conditions have improved, but because people have started “taking cell phones away from those mobilized, threatening them with criminal proceedings, forcing them to make remorseful confessions, beating up some and threatening them and their families,” says Russian military observer Michael Naki.
lice and scabies
But the authorities are not succeeding in spreading the cloak of silence everywhere. Last week, mothers and women from the Primorsky Krai addressed Putin in a video message. Her husband and sons have been at the front since October, where it is not possible for them to maintain the most rudimentary hygiene. As a result, linen lice nested in the soldiers and scabies spread among them. “There is no medical care, chronic illnesses have worsened,” complained the women. “Our boys are not receiving any humanitarian aid, including any special equipment. Their gear is torn and new ones are not being delivered.”
In social networks, volunteers collect donations in kind for Russian soldiers, for example the organization “Mother’s Heart” from the Region Mari El. In the troops there is a lack of warm clothing, there are cases of frostbite. The clothes are so expensive locally that the soldiers cannot afford them, according to a call for donations. Scarves, mittens, sweaters, pants – everything is needed. Also medicines, jams and confectionery.
Treacherous Gifts
But not only such actions testify that the Putin regime does not think about paying the promised 2545 euros monthly wage to the mobilized. The propaganda also inadvertently exposes the situation. Desiring to make their mark, Russian politicians and officials allow themselves to be followed by cameras as they bring charity to the people.
Families of conscripted soldiers were given in the Moscow region ten kilograms of potatoes and ten kilograms of carrots presented.
In the Baltiysk district, 15 families turned to the local administration for firewood. The head of the local administration, Sergey Melnikov, hastened to comply with this request in a media-effective manner.
In Yakutia, chunks of ice were distributed to the relatives of the mobilized. The ice masses broken out of the next river serve as a water supply for the inhabitants. There is no running water here.
While the propaganda praises the gifts from the authorities, the cameras show the reality: ruined villages, run-down apartments and ramshackle shacks. Here, 2545 euros per month are and will remain a distant dream.
country to give away
But it is precisely the dream of escaping misery that the Kremlin is toying with. Most recently, the head of the annexed Crimean peninsula, Sergei Aksyonov, made big promises. He announced that starting April 1 this year, he would distribute plots of land to all soldiers fighting in the war. The plots will be near the Black Sea and will be equipped with the necessary infrastructure, he assured.
“Electricity, water and gas connections will be connected. It will take some time to complete the construction work, but the funds have already been committed,” explained Aksyonov.
In other regions, too, the Russians are being lured to the front with land. In January, the governor of the Republic of Ingushetia boasted about it, having issued 21 certificates for the acquisition of land in the cities of Malgobek and Sunzha to families of mobilized soldiers. “This work will continue until all Mobilized properties are received,” he announced. If there’s one thing Russia has in abundance, it’s land – uninhabited land.
But what the destitute soldiers and their families are supposed to do with it is not revealed by Putin’s bureaucrats.
But what does the propaganda reveal about a country where fighting at the front seems to be the only way for a pensioner to be able to afford a few sausages?