Russia hands out army recruitment ads at banks and consulates

The Russian army is looking for women at Sberbank

Anna Patrusheva, a presenter at a women's club, only had to make a deposit at Sberbank to be handed a military enlistment form. As she recounted on Instagram, the employee gave her an application addressed to the military recruitment centre after completing the transaction. Hers is not an isolated case: there are reports that advertising for signing contracts with the Russian army is being handed out at ATMs, medical centres and even at Russian consulates in Australia, where it would be given out alongside postal ballots for the September elections.

The dilemma of women with no military obligation

Russian law does not impose military service on women, but it does allow them to sign voluntary contracts. That open door explains why the forms reach them too. The initial surprise clashes with the pro-recruitment messaging: it is claimed that the army pays well and it boasts of more than a million volunteers. The rebuttal comes quickly: if that figure were real, there would be no need to hand out forms at a bank or, according to some reports, resort to threats and coercion to fill the quotas.

From Ceuta to Australia

The campaign crosses borders. Ceuta has also been cited as a distribution point, along with the consulates in Australia as places where the leaflets accompany postal voting. The scattered geography does not settle the controversy: some see it as proof that Russia is winning, others as preparation for a war on the European continent. The most striking detail: more than a million volunteers, and yet the leaflet still ends up at the bank counter.