How Russia recruits soldiers to the war

This article is part of a series devoted to the insider’s perspective of a political prisoner incarcerated in Russia. Previous articles are:

Watching the war on Russian TV - a prisoner's view

“What is the cost of freedom in Europe and lack of freedom in Russia and what is Russia betting on”

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For a long time already Russian state television has been giving daily reports to the domestic audience on how employees of the Ukrainian Territorial Procurement Centres “capture” (the term used by Russian state propaganda) male draft-age citizens to send them “to the front”. This topic is rarely absent from any of the federal channels of Russian state television.

From my position in a Russian state prison, it is rather challenging to make sense of what is really happening in this regard in Ukraine. But I can share my impressions and those of others provoked by watching this topic on the “news”. And I can tell about what Russian state propaganda is passing over in silence in their news reporting on this topic in Ukraine. Namely: what is happening in Russia. I’ll say more about that below.

As a rule, news reports on this topic include a video downloaded by the propaganda-pushers from the vast collections of the World Wide Web. This video shows the Russian audience people in military uniform somewhere in Ukraine (a direct quote from the newscaster) shoving people in civilian clothes into vehicles. Or it shows people in military uniform capturing a passerby. Or it shows a fight breaking out between people in military uniform and civilians. The people, locations, and details of the events change, but the basic plot always revolves around such events, which serve as a leitmotif.

The overall message of Russian state propaganda, openly stated in every broadcast, is clear: “See, Ukrainian citizens don’t want to fight for the government in Kyiv. They are ‘capturing’ them and sending them to the front by force. Ukrainians don’t want to be sent to the front because they know about the pitiful situation of the Ukrainian armed forces.” But when you watch these reports, if you apply the least bit of critical thinking and have some idea of what is happening in Russia in this connection, then your first impression, the first feelings you sense are disgust and revulsion. Along with shock at the level of hypocrisy, which immediately invites the question: “So why aren’t you telling us about what methods are being used in Russia to send people the front? That is, aside from the advertisements in which people in military uniforms call on the citizens of Russia to receive a rich reward for joining the Special Military Operation (=SMO). Why is it that not a single news broadcast tells our fellow citizens about how recruitment of people to send to the front is really taking place in Russia, about the repressive administrative resources that are being deployed in the process?”

If Russian state propaganda wasn’t droning on about this topic day after day and thereby evoking feelings exactly the opposite of what they intended, then maybe our society would be satisfied to ignore it. But when they bring it up every single day, practically in every single news program and on all central TV channels, it becomes impossible to pass over this in silence. 

Below I provide a description of what is deliberately suppressed by Russian state propaganda when they report on measures used for mobilization in Ukraine without mentioning how similar measures are being carried out in Russia. But first let us recall the words pronounced with enviable regularity by the top leadership of the Russian government, namely that every month about 3000 contracts are signed between the Russian Ministry of Defence and people who wish to go to the SMO.

OK, but at what cost?

The majority of those who “voluntarily” sign contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defence to participate in the SMO are people who are forced to earn money this way to support themselves and their families. Because they are ashamed to admit even to themselves that the state has put them in this situation, where they are forced to use this means to feed their families, they have to justify their decisions and actions using pseudo-patriotic rationales and slogans. The fact is that they have been forced to take this step due to despair and a lack of alternatives.

One could write a lot about how over the past decade the economic policy pursued in Russia has plunged the nation into debt by various means such as: low wages, pensions, and benefits, etc.; the extremely low level of the minimum wage, which influences the salaries set by employers; the requisitioning going on at all levels of business; the credit policy and so much more. But that is not the main point of this essay. The result is that all of Russia is in debt. And what is new since the beginning of the military conflict: due to the sanctions placed on Russia, businesses have started “dying off”; many companies, forced to cut production costs, have started laying people off; many small and medium-sized employers have been subjected to repression and ceased functioning as employers; as a consequence of the various repressive administrative measures applied helter-skelter and sowing fear in the society, the term “unreliable” has reared up again in everyday use and, in order to avoid falling under the steamroller of repression themselves, employers have started firing en masse everyone who they consider to be “unreliable”, in other words, everyone who by their actions or position could, in their estimation, cause trouble for employers. 

Of course there is not space here to list all the reasons why Russian citizens have become unemployed and thus without the means to support themselves. The main point is that, since the beginning of the military conflict in Ukraine, due to a variety of factors, many people in Russia on the one hand are unable to get jobs, and on the other hand, they have been offered “good salaries” (by Russian standards) if they sign a contract with the Russian Department of Defence. So if they need to feed their families, they have practically no choice. And if you take into account the fact that Russian mortgage and money-lending policies affect nine out of ten of those now unemployed with significant debt, their lack of income means not only that they have no money to spend, but also that they face the risk of losing their homes and other property. Thus they de facto have no viable options other than earning money for their families by participating in the SMO. 

So if you compare this situation to the one that Russian state propaganda is reporting by showing videos of Ukrainian citizens being “captured” by military recruiters and apply the same logic, then you see that all the Russians described above have also been “captured”, “trapped” in financial “cages”.

And as concerns reports of people being forcibly detained, the very same thing is happening in Russia, it is just being suppressed. Every week (and maybe every day) police conduct raids in various corners of Russia to catch illegal migrants, a topic regularly reported on in Russian state TV. The people who conduct these raids are armed and, as a rule, they apply physical force and arrest an enormous number of people. These people, who are either legally in Russia, or who have committed various crimes, including citizens of the Russian Federation who offer employment or housing to migrants, are delivered to various government units. These units then “work them over” in order to convince them to sign contracts with the Russian Department of Defence, agreeing to participate in the SMO. Given the ability of those arrested in these raids to understand legalese, or rather their lack thereof, in addition to the fact that they have been through a forcible arrest by armed officers, inciting feelings of fear and helplessness, it is no surprise that many of them are willing to agree to these contracts.

There are somewhat different mechanisms used to exert pressure on the people who are arrested in these raids because they offered employment or housing to migrants. For example, there can be threats of criminal prosecution in addition to the experience of arrest by armed officers using force and inciting fear and terror. In this way, a certain percentage of citizens are forced to sign contracts. So this is how future participants in the SMO are rounded up by force.

An analogous situation plays out with arrests on charges of criminal offences. Every day, in every corner of Russia there are mass arrests on such charges, carried out by armed officers using physical force. Videos of this are perpetually beamed from TV sets in order to sow fear and anxiety in society, practically in every news broadcast of central TV channels. In about 90% of cases these arrests are unjustified since for the most part they involve minor offences (or maybe none at all; I will have more to say about this). They involve unarmed citizens that do not represent any threat. All the officers would have to do is walk up to them, show their badges and say that they should follow them to the police department, or ring the bell at their apartment door, and when it is opened, follow the same routine: identify themselves as police and tell them to come along. But instead, in almost every case, they slam the supposed offenders to the ground, handcuff them, and drag them into transport vehicles. Or, if the arrests take place indoors, they break down the door at the home or building, throw them to the ground, handcuff them, and drag them away. 

It is done this way in order to make the supposed offenders more malleable upon delivery to law enforcement, where they are also given the choice between criminal prosecution and signing a contract. In addition, this rounding up of people by force maintains a level of fear and anxiety in society. Again, here you have capture and use of physical violence.

But the capture, arrest, and delivery to law enforcement of supposed offenders in order to convince them to sign contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defence to participate in the SMO – this is just the tip of the iceberg. The whole picture is much more complicated because the repressive administrative machine was at the beginning of the military conflict let loose with full authority and all agencies of the government are working in concert with a single aim – to send off as many combat units as possible.

For example, even citizens with minor financial infractions, or problems involving fines or financial losses, in today’s circumstances can wind up participating in the SMO. In the current situation in Russian, these citizens have seen so much about what the repressive administrative machine can do to people, when things that used to provoke at worst a civil lawsuit or fine now result in at least a criminal prosecution on trumped-up charges or confiscation of all one’s property and resources. To preserve their property for their family and avoid the possible consequences of prosecution, just at the onset of any conflict they take a proactive stance. They are forced to sign a contract to “stay out of harm’s way”, and they go off to fight.

As concerns offences that can lead to criminal liability, all levels of legal proceedings work like a conveyor belt delivering combat units to the front. In the overwhelming majority of cases this doesn’t even lead to people being jailed since many people agree to sign a contract right after their arrest when they are delivered to law enforcement. And law enforcement has intensified its efforts to either pull out of thin air non-existent offenses or to artificially inflate the volume of accusations where there are some offences, albeit much less than claimed by the prosecution. This happens because, in the first place, given what these people know about Russian “justice”, they figure that they don’t stand a chance of fighting off the accusations, and in the second place they have been traumatized by an arrest that took place as described above. 

Thus, depending on the severity of the supposed offense people comply in order to avoid a criminal case or prosecution. Or they do so if a crime has taken place that cannot be hushed up. Either way, they get sent to the recruitment office to sign a contract. And then there are those who get put in jail: all the operations of the investigative bodies and the detention centres, as well as the courts are focused on just one thing: persuading them to sign a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defence. And all these citizens can likewise be categorized among those who have been “captured” following the violent playbook of the repressive administrative machine. To this end these bodies apply not only forcible detention by means of violence and removal, but all the measures at their disposal: searches, confiscation of property, threats of inclusion on various incriminating lists and registers etc. The effects of these measures can be annulled, for example one can get one’s property back, if they agree to sign a contract.

As a “by-product” of these repressive measures, a significant number of those who sign contracts are members of the bureaucracy and their associates, former employees of various bodies of the government and civil servants, former officials and the like. They flee to the front in order to save themselves from various acts of misconduct (which in many cases the same ones they themselves have cooked up). This happens because they are cogs in the repressive administrative machine, so they know the power of the machine and what it is aiming at. They know that if they fall under its “steamroller”, there is no way to get out again. After all they have participated in these operations and are also afraid of this machine. Therefore, if they commit any kind of misconduct, make a mistake, or fail to show sufficient enthusiasm on the job and someone notices this, they immediately drop everything, resign, quit their jobs and, to be on the safe side, sign a contract with the Ministry of Defence in order to minimize the losses for themselves and their families. 

For example, we often get news about bureaucrats somewhere who haven’t lived up to expectations, so they resigned and were sent to the SMO. Or that somewhere employees of some department have been arrested on suspicion of something or other, and the ones in charge have been fired from their jobs and gone off to the front. Sometimes it looks like they “caught” themselves, before anyone else could come “hunting” after them. Sending people to the front because of some misconduct has really become a massive phenomenon.

Expanding somewhat on the topic of this article, it is worth noting two other massive phenomena that have arisen in today’s Russia due to the above-mentioned operations aimed at the “capture” of potential candidates for contracts. The first one is the appearance of a large group of people who have broken the law and committed crimes on the assumption that even if they get caught, they can avoid criminal liability and punishment by signing a contract and going off to the front. As soon as these citizens wind up in jail, their primary concern is whether they can sign a contract and be sent to the SMO. The second is that society has come to associate signing a contract with the Department of Defence and being sent to the SMO with punishment, and that “the powers that be” have started threatening people that they can be sent to the SMO for all kinds of misconduct.

This reaches the level of the absurd: videos have started to appear on the web showing the children of law enforcement bureaucrats and officials getting into arguments and threatening their opponents with deployment to the SMO, saying: “Do you know who my mom (dad) is? She’s/He’s the mayor (or has some other position)! Tomorrow you’re going to be sent to the SMO” and the like. The web has a lot of videos with variations on this theme.

Of course it is really offensive when you see how Russian state media are duping our people, showing them what is happening “over there”, while suppressing the news about what’s happening “here”. But if one takes a more global perspective, comparing what we are being shown about what is happening “over there” and what is being suppressed about what is happening here at home, then one has to take into account the fact that the governments are also in rather different situations. In Ukraine the entire country is under martial law and mobilization is still underway. That’s not the case in Russia, but look what is happening even without martial law and further mobilization. If we imagine a hypothetical situation in which the army of a country with nuclear weapons were to invade Russian territory, the government and its armed forces would rally their units and be fighting to free the territory, martial law would be enacted across the whole country and there would be a mobilization. Under the current government in Russia, they would be shooting anyone who failed to toe the line, not just those who refused to be sent to the front, but even those who didn’t show enough enthusiasm when going off to fight.

The most disturbing thing in all this is the way it lays bare the pitiful situation of the media in Russia, how they cling to the state and government, the lack of freedom of speech, and also the fact that in many cases the propaganda is achieving its goals and successfully duping our people.