



{"id":36012,"date":"2023-09-05T10:14:48","date_gmt":"2023-09-05T10:14:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/media.am\/?p=36012"},"modified":"2023-09-05T10:14:48","modified_gmt":"2023-09-05T10:14:48","slug":"a-recruitment-campaign-to-enlist-fighters-for-the-russian-ukrainian-war-is-underway-in-the-armenian-online-domain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/critique\/2023\/09\/05\/36012\/","title":{"rendered":"A Recruitment Campaign To Enlist Fighters For The Russian-Ukrainian War Is Underway In The Armenian Online Domain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine stretches across multiple dimensions. One unique aspect of the conflict involves mobilizing citizens of other countries.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Both Russia and Ukraine have mobilization issues, leading them to recruit foreign soldiers.<\/p>\n<p>The Internet is an essential recruitment tool for this purpose, with social networks and streaming platforms providing extended advertising opportunities.<\/p>\n<p>Recruiting operations targeting Armenia involve both conflicting parties, but Russia is currently the primary actor.<\/p>\n<p>The first to actively engage in recruiting foreign soldiers was Ukraine, which established an International Legion and a recruitment infrastructure with the assistance of embassies.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisements appeared as early as March 2022, just days after the beginning of the war.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-35994 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/media.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/ukr-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"1422\" srcset=\"https:\/\/media.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/ukr-1.jpg 640w, https:\/\/media.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/ukr-1-135x300.jpg 135w, https:\/\/media.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/ukr-1-461x1024.jpg 461w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The following ad was created to target specifically the residents of Germany.<\/p>\n<p>This Facebook ad also targets Armenian residents and provides clear instructions for joining the Ukrainian International Legion.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-35996 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/media.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/ukr-2.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"682\" height=\"658\" srcset=\"https:\/\/media.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/ukr-2.png 682w, https:\/\/media.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/ukr-2-300x289.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 682px) 100vw, 682px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Currently, Ukraine is not actively recruiting Armenian soldiers, while Russia is actively advertising for contract soldiers to join the Russian army.<\/p>\n<p>The Russian side cannot post ads on American social networks, as they will inevitably be blocked within seconds. That is why numerous Russian websites are used as the primary platform, most of which belong to the VK company, such as the VK social network, Odnoklsniki, Mail.ru platform, and others.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, pirate websites are used for military recruitment, where movies and TV series stream; these sites provide the opportunity to place advertisements without restrictions.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some recruitment ads clearly targeting Armenians.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-35998\" src=\"https:\/\/media.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/rus-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"806\" srcset=\"https:\/\/media.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/rus-1.jpg 960w, https:\/\/media.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/rus-1-300x252.jpg 300w, https:\/\/media.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/rus-1-768x645.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-36000 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/media.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/rus-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"990\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https:\/\/media.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/rus-2.jpg 990w, https:\/\/media.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/rus-2-232x300.jpg 232w, https:\/\/media.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/rus-2-792x1024.jpg 792w, https:\/\/media.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/rus-2-768x993.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 990px) 100vw, 990px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The advertisement leads to a recruitment site for the contract service of Sakhalin Region.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-36002\" src=\"https:\/\/media.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/rus-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"585\" height=\"601\" srcset=\"https:\/\/media.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/rus-3.jpg 585w, https:\/\/media.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/rus-3-292x300.jpg 292w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 585px) 100vw, 585px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The list of awards presented on the website clearly indicates that the service will not be taking place on Russia&#8217;s eastern shores but on the battleground.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-36004 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/media.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/rus-4.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1163\" srcset=\"https:\/\/media.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/rus-4.png 2048w, https:\/\/media.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/rus-4-300x170.png 300w, https:\/\/media.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/rus-4-1024x582.png 1024w, https:\/\/media.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/rus-4-768x436.png 768w, https:\/\/media.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/rus-4-1536x872.png 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Given that Mail.ru is the primary e-mail platform in Armenia, and Odnoklassniki and VK also have significant audiences, it can be assumed that Russian recruitment ads have an extensive reach.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><strong>Samvel Martirosyan<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; The ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine stretches across multiple dimensions. One unique aspect of the conflict involves mobilizing citizens of other countries.&nbsp; Both Russia and Ukraine have mobilization issues, leading them to recruit foreign soldiers. The Internet is an essential recruitment tool for this purpose, with social networks and streaming platforms providing extended<a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/critique\/2023\/09\/05\/36012\/\"> Read the full article&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":186,"featured_media":35993,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,212],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-critique","category-featured-post","author_posts-samvel-martirosyan"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/186"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36012"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36015,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36012\/revisions\/36015"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}