Russia urges young Ukrainians to sign contracts to fight against Ukraine

As it is not seen the end of the war in which more than 315,000 Russian men were killed or wounded, since the full invasion began in February 2022, according to US estimates US President Vladimir Putin's Government appears to be intended to preserve or increase the number of soldiers.

Eager to avoid repeating mobilization from 2022, which prompted hundreds of thousands of people to leave Russia, the Kremlin is aiming to contract soldiers to increase the number of troops to 1.32 million in 2024.

In December 2023, then Defence Minister Seregi Shoigu set a goal for himself “top stop” to have a contract personnel of 745,000 by the end of 2017, the state news agency TASS reported.

Russia's attempts at recruiting and calling to the military are not limited only to Russian territory. While it is illegal by international law, the Russian Army intends to recruit men into five Ukrainian regions that Moscow claims without any basis for being its own: Donjeck, Luhansk, Zaporije, Herson and Crimea.

Many boys interviewed by Donbas. Radio reality Free Europe in the Luhansk region, which is almost entirely under Russian control, said universities and institutes have become the main recruiting sites for Russian forces.

Serhiy, a 20-year-old student at an institute in the town of Luhansk, said that contracting posters for services in Russia's Armed Forces are currently <x0); extraordinary” and appear on student class walls.

We joked that this looked like a way to motivate us, for example, if you don't learn, you'll join the army, said Serhiy, who, like other interviewers, asked to be used only by his name for fear of revenge.

“Soviet standards”

The target of the recruiting tracts is students eager for work. There are promises of free housing, health care, and at least a month's pay break each year. The payment is measured according to rank and activity, while there is an additional payment of 195,000 rubles [$2.150] for signing the contract.

In an effort to convince them to sign contracts, Russian military officers, deployed “specifically to a Luhansk institute, approach students during long holidays, or after school, to ask for a cigarette or lighter, Anton said, who studies there.

Officers to show what a grand future you will have, if you go to fight” and ensure that contract soldiers in the Russian Army “are treated with respect, valued and protected”, Antony said.

In a post on social networks 10 April, the Ministry of Defence of Great Britain said the Russian Army “sought to recruit 400,000 soldiers under contract in 2024. ”

In early April, Russia's Defence Ministry said more than 100,000 men have signed contracts so far.

There is no official public record of the number of men in parts occupied by Russia in Ukraine who have responded to this recruiting campaign.

In January, the Russian government eased the men's ways of joining the military, changing the mandatory two-part medical test into only one test at the military recruiting headquarters.

Ihor, a recruit in the Luhansk region, which is located in a regional training camp, said Russian Army officers attend the Soviet <x0ndanddarde” and are focused on meeting quotas, without worrying about medical tests.

You go and say: I want a contract. They don't even try to control you. They just ask you: So, should I write that you're fat?

A mother in Luhansk, Anastassia, said that “getia” for young men who will sign contracts with the army begins with students of high school aged 16-17.

Armed with Russian <x0-full-full interior” meets the contract condition once they have completed 18 years and graduated from high school. Military service registration is mandatory from the age of 17.

In recent months, according to Anastasia, her son's school has repeatedly reminded the students of the deadline for military registration. To encourage them, she added, the school has often held meetings with the so-called war-called <x0heroes, who tell students “the important and prestigious thing is to protect the homeland from the Nazis” referring to Putin's false claims to the Ukrainian president's government, Volody Zelensky.

Anastasia described them as non-pressive meetings and “normal conversation”, but her son, she said that there were questions in the conversation “alarming” for him if you know the “put a good shot at”.

Empty Promises

But if promotional words and posters do not do work, Russian officials use other tactics to increase the number of students who sign contracts to fight, the students interviewed said.

Under Russian law implemented illegally in occupied parts of Ukraine, men from 18 to 30 could postpone their binding service in the military if they are studying at a higher education institute. But there is no guarantee of that.

Students “may simply fail “at the end of the semester, because security officials come to the university and explain they need new volunteers”, Anton said.

Serhiy told the REL that the Russian Army recruited some of his classmates who had not passed the winter semester exams and sent them to train in the Russian region, Belgorod, which is at the Luhanski border.

“They are digging holes there, but no one is teaching guys how to fight and survive”, he said.

Serhiy added that many former classmates of his class fear they will be sent to the front line. Although Russia's Defence Ministry claims that recruits are not being sent to fight in Ukraine, Luhansk residents say otherwise.

Anthony said that his older brother, recruited in 2023, was promised a year of training, but was taken to Ukraine's administrative border in Luhansk and in the areas of Harkiv “within a few months”.

The daily “Bundards and ongoing fighting taught him to fight, not recruiting”, Anton said.

Kiev has called on Ukrainians from Russia's occupied territories, who are fighting for Russia, to surrender “to the first opportunity”.

Ihor said that five to seven students in his training group do not want to fight against Ukraine, but believe that once they have carried out military service, they will not be called to war immediately.

Russian officers have told him that he could be called “any moment”, after his recruiting has been completed.

“After your military service, you are still hostage”, he said.

The contract does not necessarily offer better protection to inexperienced soldiers.

Anastasia said the son of her poor neighbours signed a contract when she turned 18 because she wanted to become an independent “”.

His “parents did not refuse. They buried her within a few months”, she said. / REL/