Russia is rolling out an unprecedented military enlistment ad campaign amid Ukraine’s offensive in the Kursk region

Russia is pressing on with its offensive in eastern Ukraine while attempting to counter Kyiv’s operations in the Kursk region. To sustain both efforts, Moscow needs more troops, but even government officials acknowledge a decline in recruitment. In response, the Kremlin has ramped up advertising. According to a new report from Agenstvo, the Russian authorities have launched their largest ad campaign of the war to date, trying to entice citizens into signing army contracts with promises of lucrative sign-on bonuses.

Russia is running its largest advertising campaign for military contract service since the start of the full-scale war, according to an analysis by Agenstvo. The campaign spans platforms like Telegram, Yandex, VKontakte, and state TV, and was launched amid Ukraine’s offensive in the Kursk region and Russia’s accelerated advance in eastern Ukraine — Russia needs new recruits for both operations.

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In August, Telegram posts featuring the Defense Ministry’s military enlistment website reached 5.8 times more viewers than the monthly average since the site’s launch in November 2022. Data from TGStat shows these posts garnered over 13.5 million views last month, far surpassing the previous record of 8.2 million in May 2023, after Russian forces claimed to have captured Bakhmut. Mentions of the site also increased by 5.5 times: typically, the site is mentioned about 1,000 times per month, but in August, it appeared 5,800 times in posts.

Previously, most of the ads were concentrated on the ministry’s main Telegram channel. However, in August 2024, the campaign expanded to regional channels. The most mentions came from regions such as Magadan, the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russian-controlled administrations in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, and parts of Russia’s Kursk region.

In August, the Moscow mayor’s office ran ads for contract military service on Yandex for the first time, reaching half a million users. The ads emphasized financial incentives, including a sign-on bonus of 2.3 million rubles ($25,400) and an annual salary of 5.2 million rubles ($57,423). At least nine Russian regions, including Moscow, have also ramped up their ad efforts through Yandex. In the Moscow region alone, the ads received 12 million views in August. Nationally, the Digital Development Ministry’s Yandex ads reached 328 million users between January and September of this year, with a peak of 57 million views in June (August was also above average, with 54.7 million).

Ads for military service have also surfaced on the social networking site VKontakte. Journalist Andrey Zakharov and the human rights group Department One discovered some even posted on accounts belonging to schools and kindergartens in St. Petersburg. Meanwhile, calls to go to war have become more frequent on state TV. Channel One’s talk show “Vremya Pokazhet” (Time Will Tell) now runs commercials for contract military service, and propagandist Vladimir Solovyov has begun promoting enlistment hotlines on his program. State TV channels and their regional affiliates have also aired reports about an “influx” of people signing army contracts, linking the “surge in interest” to Ukraine’s offensive in the Kursk region.

This expansive advertising campaign likely reflects challenges in recruiting new soldiers. In July, the Russian government admitted to a 30 percent drop in recruitment. By the end of the month, Vladimir Putin increased sign-on bonuses, with payments rising by 400 percent in some of Russia’s poorest regions.