Vladimir Putin on the Western Sanctions Regime and Russia's Response

The West, particularly the United States, has been using sanctions against Russia for many years to force the nation's leadership into toeing what the West refers to as the "international order" with the sanctions regime reaching new levels after the Maidan uprising in Ukraine in 2014.  In a recent address at the plenary session of the 34th annual congress of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, President Putin addressed this issue and how Russia was coping with the current sanctions environment and would continue to deal with sanctions in the future.  Here are some quotes from his speech with my bolds throughout:

"Let me note that the Russian business community has faced significant challenges over the recent years. We are well aware of this. These include a powerful sanctions pressure, primarily restrictions on international settlements and transactions on external markets. As a whole, these and other challenges are undermining the freedom of trade and investment in the world economy. I will also say a few words about this as an aside.  

Importantly, Russian entrepreneurs have learned to work under sanctions during this period. They have adapted to sanctions, inventing and launching alternative mechanisms for cooperation with foreign partners – those who want to work with us. Besides, sanctions have become an additional catalyst of sorts to positive structural changes in the Russian economy, including in finance and technology, and in many other key spheres."  

Putin goes on to take a deeper examination of the sanctions environment, why the West has imposed them and how severe they are:

 "Sanctions are neither temporary nor targeted measures; they constitute a mechanism of systemic, strategic pressure against our nation. Regardless of global developments or shifts in the international order, our competitors will perpetually seek to constrain Russia and diminish its economic and technological capacities. 

Moreover, whereas the so-called Western elites previously attempted to cloak this confrontation in propriety, they now evidently seem to no longer feel the need to be concerned about appearances, nor do they intend to be. They not only routinely threaten Russia with new sanctions but churn out these packages incessantly. One gains the impression that even the architects themselves have lost track of the restrictions imposed and their targets.

Here, the Ministry of Finance has tallied them. I state with confidence: 28,595 sanctions against individuals and legal entities. This exceeds – by a significant margin – all sanctions ever imposed on all other nations combined."

He goes on to observe that no matter what Russia does, the Western elites will find some excuse to impose even more restrictions as they have done throughout the post-Soviet era:

"Even if there is some gesture from their side – say, they propose to lift or ease something – we can expect that another way will be found to exert pressure, to throw a spanner in the works, as was the case with the well-known Jackson–Vanik amendment. The Soviet Union, against which it was originally introduced, no longer existed, and relations between Russia and the United States of America were at their absolute best, as good as they could possibly be. Yet the amendment continued to remain in force. And when it was seemingly repealed, it was in fact simply replaced with another restrictive instrument against Russia. Recall this: repealed, then supplanted."

Putin states that all that these endless sanctions have done is to destroy the old unipolar world economic order and create a new one: 

"I reiterate: sanctions and restrictions are the reality of the existing new stage of development that the entire world, the entire global economy, has entered. The global competitive struggle has intensified, assuming increasingly sophisticated and uncompromising forms. 

Thus, literally before our eyes, a new spiral of economic rivalry is unfolding, and under these conditions, it is almost embarrassing to recall the norms and rules of the World Trade Organisation, once zealously promoted by the West. Once… When? When these rules advantaged them… As soon as they became disadvantageous, everything began to change. And all these negotiations stalled. And, in fact, no one needs them anymore.

This is evident, and I have emphasised it repeatedly: a return to pre-existing conditions is impossible. We should not anticipate fully unfettered trade, payments, or capital flows, nor rely on Western mechanisms to safeguard investor and entrepreneur rights."

Here he outlines how Russia can fight against the reality of Western-imposed sanctions:

"In these conditions, it is important for Russian businesses to show flexibility, explore new markets, design their own technological solutions, and establish cooperation with reliable partners, there are many of them in the world. Of course, the Government and the regions must provide, and are providing, the required support here. For my part, I will do everything possible to support this process. 

Russia is strengthening its sovereignty in all areas that would ensure the operation of businesses, such as the development of transport, logistics, and financial and payment infrastructure. We are already doing this and will definitely keep doing it.

I know and understand the challenges you are facing, but we will do everything to help you. Let me stress: only those countries that can ensure real, full sovereignty become stable in general and resistant to external pressure, and can progress dynamically in the interests of their people.

Let me give you a clear example. In fact, it is well known, but I will nevertheless use the occasion to say it again. We can see that most European countries have lost their sovereignty, and as a result they have faced serious problems both in the economy and in the security sphere. As for the economy, all of them have near-zero growth rates or are even entering a recession. On the contrary, the BRICS countries and those that wish to join the association understand the benefit of combining potentials, and in recent years they have been leaders in global growth, creating a high benchmark for economic dynamics.

Let me remind you that the GDP growth of the Eurozone was 0.9 percent in 2024, I mean of the “Big Seven” (Why is it big? It is not clear. What is big about it? Wherever you look, you can’t find any of them on the map.) that has the growth of 1.9 percent, while the BRICS has 4.9. In Russia, it was 4.1 for two years in a row – last year and the year before."

As we can see on this map from the World Bank, Russia's GDP growth far exceeded that of the Eurozone as a whole and on a nation by nation basis with rare exceptions:

Let's wrap up this posting with one final quote which looks at Russia's economic future as part of a global trading bloc:

"The so-called Western dominance slipping away, and new global growth centres taking the centre stage is a long-term trend, and I want to emphasise that. Yes, of course, we are fully aware of the advantages offered by our so-called Western partners, such as advanced technology and production process organisation. They have that, it is true. They have achieved a lot. We should respect that and use their best practices, but not copy them.  

We should keep in mind that growth rates in various regions of the world will remain stable over the next several decades. And the fact that we have, to a certain extent, refocused our priorities (not through our fault, by the way) due to a number of circumstances may be a good thing. We are shifting our focus to global promising markets. All things that we need we will get one way or another.  

Of course, this long-term trend will remain unchanged. It will be bolstered up by, among other things, the BRICS development platform that is currently taking shape. It will include resource, technology, personnel, finance, trade and investment components at a whole new level with the use of cutting-edge digital solutions, which will maximize the platform’s effectiveness and keep negative outside interference at bay. 

I very much count on Russian businesses taking an active part in these joint projects with our BRICS partners and future BRICS members."

He also makes it very clear that foreign companies that left Russia in 2022 will be welcomed back to do business in Russia in the future, however, the Russian government is developing a procedure that will coordinate their return with mandatory guarantees of good faith and conscientious business practices.  Foreign companies that left and have now been replaced by Russian businesses will not be given privileges or preferences if they choose to return and that companies who sold their businesses at fire sale prices when they left will not be able to repurchase these assets at the same highly discounted, ultra-low prices.

 Putin closes with this:

"I wish everyone success for the benefit of Russia."

Comparing Vladimir Putin's Popularity to Western Leaders

In a previous posting, I looked at how Canada's Ambassador to Russia, Sarah Taylor, viewed Russians' sentiment toward their leader, Vladimir Putin and how he was just a short step from being tossed out of office.  In this posting, I want to compare President Putin's popularity to that of some key Western leaders and see who is really admired by their citizenry. 

 

Recent polling from Russia's  non-politically aligned Levada Center shows us that Vladimir Putin is still highly regarded by Russians: 

 

In December 2024, Putin's approval rating among his fellow Russians was 87 percent.

 

Now, in sharp contrast, let's look at the popularity of Justin Trudeau, Canada's Prime Minister (for now) and Ambassador Taylor's boss:

 

Currently, only 22 percent of Canadians approve of Justin Trudeau's performance, an all-time low.  By party, Trudeau's Liberals would receive only 16 percent of votes, another all-time low which would result in the party garnering only 6 out of the 338 seats in Canada's House of Parliament.

 

Here's a summary of polls showing Joe Biden's approval rating:

 

 

Just over 37 percent of Americans approve of Biden's performance.

  

Here is a graphic showing the popularity of France's President Emmanuel Macron:

Only 23 percent of France's voters approve of Macron's performance, a near-record low.

Now, let's look at the approval rating of U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer:

 

Only 27 percent of Brits are satisfied with Starmer's performance and only 21 percent are satisfied with the performance of his government.

While I don't have a graphic to show, polling in September 2024 showed that only 18 percent of Germans were satisfied with the performance of their Chancellor Olaf Scholz as quoted here:

One might almost think that the nations leading the battle against Putin's Russia find themselves with leaders that they wish to rid themselves of on a permanent basis.  I'm guessing that many of the West's leaders, many of whom are of the Neo-liberal persuasion, would kill for the very high approval numbers that Vladimir Putin is receiving from his fellow Russians.

Canada's Ambassador to Russia and the Next Russian Revolution

This article recently appeared in the Globe and Mail, Canada's once great newspaper of record:

 

Sarah Taylor is Canada's current ambassador to Russia and a Trudeau government appointment effective November 15th, 2023 as shown here:

 

Let's go back to Sarah Taylor and the Globe and Mail.  Here is a quote from the article:

 

"To be Canada’s ambassador to Russia these days is to be both officially ignored and constantly watched.

 

The Russian Foreign Ministry holds regular briefings for foreign diplomats but doesn’t invite those from the countries it considers “unfriendly” – a list of more than two dozen, mostly Western, nations that Canada has been on since soon after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Diplomats from countries on the “unfriendly” list are also skipped for Christmas and New Year’s party invitations.

 

Meanwhile, Sarah Taylor – Canada’s 17th ambassador to Moscow – and her staff experience regular surveillance, as well as staged demonstrations berating Canada for its assistance to Ukraine since Russia invaded its smaller neighbour in February, 2022.

 

“I would say there is a somewhat hostile atmosphere. That’s not new, although it has intensified since the invasion of Ukraine,” Ms. Taylor said in a video interview from Moscow. “The feel, for a Canadian or Western diplomat, is quite Cold War-like, with one exception – that there are a lot of Eastern European countries that are now part of NATO and not part of the Warsaw Pact....

 

The Kremlin, meanwhile, almost completely ignores the Canadian embassy, other than on low-level issues such as consular cases.”

I hate to tell Ambassador Taylor but she's not in Moscow to attend Christmas and New Year's parties put on by Russians.  If she is that unhappy with her new posting, perhaps she should retire from her cozy and comfortable life in one of the most dynamic cities in the world.

 

I'm not exactly certain why Ms. Taylor expects a warm welcome from Russia given that Canada has, for all intents and purposes, declared war on Russia and "donated" $5.55 billion in financial allocations, $520 million in humanitarian aid and $2.41 billion in military assistance (current to October 31, 2024 - U.S. dollars) for a total of $8.48 billion, putting the nation in sixth place overall after the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan.  Here is a sampling of the military assistance that Canada has provided to Ukraine:

Here is a complete list of military equipment that Canada has supplied to Ukraine since February 2022 should you care to understand what type of obsolete equipment the Trudeau government has offloaded.   As well, the Trudeau government is looking at the possibility of donating formerly legal guns that have been forcibly confiscated from law-abiding Canadians to Ukraine as shown here:

Let's go back to Ambassador Taylor's whining.  One of the issues that she brings up is the supposed anti-Putin movement in Russia (with my bold):

 

"Being in Moscow allowed Ms. Taylor and other Western diplomats to join the thousands of Russians who came into the streets on March 1 to mourn opposition leader Alexey Navalny, who died in an Arctic prison camp in what Mr. Navalny’s allies see as the Kremlin-ordered murder of Mr. Putin’s most prominent critic.

 

Standing outside the church, Ms. Taylor noticed that the crowd became braver as it grew in numbers. Soon, anti-war and anti-Putin chants were echoing through the streets of Moscow.

 

That convinced Ms. Taylor that there was very little genuine affection for Mr. Putin or enthusiasm for his war in Ukraine. While Russia has seen little in the way of public dissent since Mr. Navalny’s funeral, Ms. Taylor believes things could change in a hurry."

  

Here's the key quote:

 

“Everything seems quiet now, but in the right circumstances and with the right leader you could see Russians coalesce quite suddenly,” she said. “Like with Syria, like with all these authoritarian regimes, everything is fine until it isn’t.”

 

That comment would appear to me to be completely undiplomatic at best.  She obviously has very little understanding of the culture of the nation in which she is currently living and what a significant impact the Second World War had on their national identity.  Having spent time in Russia, you cannot understand their culture through the lens of Western eyes.

 

While she may be swallowing the line that Putin is only clinging to power, recent polling from Russia's  Levada Center would show otherwise:

 

 

In December 2024, Putin's approval rating among his fellow Russians was 87 percent.

 

So, while Canada's Ambassador to Russia claims that Russians are being mean to her and that the citizens of her host nation are just a very short step away from a potential overthrow of their allegedly unpopular President, it would appear that this is nothing more and nothing less than Western mainstream media anti-Russia propaganda.  Quite frankly, I'm surprised that Sarah Taylor's comment on the next "Russian Revolution" hasn't found her ejected unceremoniously from her cushy job in Moscow and deported back to Canada.

Escalating the War with Russia - How the Outgoing Biden Administration Could Hobble Donald Trump

An op-ed piece by Ivan Dunaevsky in the Russian newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta, a newspaper published by the Government of Russia, provides us with some interesting viewpoints from the Russian government on the soon-to-be extinct Biden Administration's decision to allow its ATACMS longer range missiles to be used by the Ukrainians to send a "message" further into the Russian fatherland , in particular, how this might impact the incoming Trump Administration.

  

Here is a key quote from this article with my bolds:

"Hobble the successor:

 

In fact, it is expected that Biden will look for ways to escalate the Ukrainian crisis at the end of his term. The purpose of the rumor about strikes on Russia and the most possible solution to this issue is succinctly reflected in the headline of the CNN article: "Biden has raised the stakes in the conflict that Trump will inherit. It is a provocative move with special symbolism."

 

Although US President-elect Donald Trump will not take office until January 20, 2025, his election victory has already had a noticeable impact on the tone of the media noise on the Ukrainian crisis. And this is not only a flurry of comments from journalists and experts about what his return to the White House means for Ukraine, but also numerous statements from politicians from different countries, most of which are about the prospects for a peaceful settlement. Trump himself promised to resolve the crisis even before his inauguration, and a number of his appointees to key positions have previously criticized aid to Ukraine. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz recently even allowed himself to break the taboo that has been tacitly in effect in the West and call the Russian president .

  

Biden, apparently, cannot come to terms with this, thereby increasingly openly demonstrating that the Ukrainian crisis is very much his personal creation. He set himself the goal of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia and invested in it, as the Pentagon recently calculated, not only about 180 billion dollars, but also all his political weight, forcing NATO allies to follow him....

 

Nevertheless, it cannot be ruled out that in the remaining weeks he will try to complicate the possible implementation of Trump's plans. After Trump's victory, the White House stated that by the end of his term they would hastily spend the last 6 billion dollars that Congress had previously allocated for these purposes on weapons for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Other solutions to escalate the situation are also possible, including those discussed in the American media."

 

If, indeed, the Biden Administration does allow or encourage the use of its medium-range missiles to attack the Russian heartland and Russian President Vladimir Putin does act on his "NATO crossing the red line" mantra, the world could well be headed for a major conflict between two superpowers all because the outgoing Administration wants to hobble the incoming one.  We can only hope that Putin will hold off on any response should Ukraine decide to use America's supersonic ballistic missiles with the hope that saner heads will prevail in the next Administration and put a quick end to this losing proposition.

The Missions and Objectives of the Russian Armed Forces

While we may have a surficial understanding of the mission and objectives of the Russian military, much of which is communicated to us through the eyes of the biased Western media which seems quite certain that Russia's goal is to conquer the better part of Europe.

 

Using a VPN, I was able to access the website of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation and the pertinent webpage which outlines the Objectives of the Russian Armed Forces as shown here:

 

The mission statement opens with this:

 

"Given the foreign policy shifts of recent years and new national security priorities, the Russian Armed Forces now have a totally new set of objectives..."

 

The four objectives are as follows:

 

1.) Deterring the military and political threats to the security or interests of the Russian Federation

2.) Supporting economic and political interests of the Russian Federation

3.) Mounting other-than-war enforcement operations

4.) Using military force

Note that "using military force" is not the first objective of the Russian Armed Forces, rather, deterrence, supporting the homeland and other-than-war operations would appear to be priorities.  You will also notice that their objectives do not include having 750 military bases in 80 nations around the world:

 

Let's look at each objective in turn.  Here are some of the tasks that Russia's Armed Forces will use to deter war and military-political threats and to provide for national security:

 

- tracking the rising military-political tensions and uncovering war preparations to attack the Russian Federation and/or its allies;

- sustaining the status, operational availability and mobilizational preparedness of the strategic nuclear forces and the relevant support capabilities to assure their functionality and usability; keeping the C2 systems ready to inflict the desired losses on the aggressor under any conditions;

- maintaining operational capabilities, war and mobilizational preparedness and training of the peacetime general purpose forces on the level high enough to beat back local aggression;

assuring readiness for strategic deployments as part of a state-run effort to put the nation on a war footing;

- making arrangements to put in place territorial defenses.

Here are some of the tasks that Russia's Armed Forces will use to support its economic and political interests:

 

- providing for security of Russian citizens in war zones and areas of political or other sort of instabilities;

- creating the friendly environment for Russian state or government-related economic activities;

- safeguarding Russian national interests in the territorial waters, continental shelf, exclusive economic zones and the World Ocean;

- staging and conducting information counter-balancing operations.

 

Here are some of the tasks that Russia's Armed Forces will use in other-than-war operations:

 

- living up to the commitments in keeping with the relevant international treaty obligations and inter-governmental agreements;

- fighting international terrorism, political extremism and separatism; preventing and putting in check sabotage activities and terrorist acts;

- undertaking a partial or full-fledged strategic deployment, maintaining operational availability of the nuclear deterrence capabilities;

- running UN/CIS-mandated peace-keeping/peace-enforcement operations while operating either as part of a coalition set up by an international Russian-participated organization or on an ad-hoc basis;

assuring a martial law/emergency regime in one or several constituent units of the Russian Federation pursuant to express directives from the National Command Authority;

- safeguarding the national borders of the Russian Federation in the air and underwater media;

Of most interest to us is the use of military force to assure the security of the Russian Federation.  According to the Russian government, Russia's Armed Forces are trained to engage in four types of war:

 

1.) Armed Conflict

 

A form of conflict waged to resolve political, ethnic, religious, territorial and other kind of difference through the use of arms, with the country (countries) involved in the relevant military operations coming short of letting the tensions be escalated to the special status generally known as war.

 

2.) Local War:

 

A war between two or more countries pursuing limited political goals, where combat operations are generally prosecuted within the confines of the warring sides. Under certain circumstances, local wars can escalate into a regional or large-scale war.  In my opinion, this is the type of war currently being fought in Ukraine and is on the brink of becoming a regional war given Washington's unfettered support for Ukraine's military.

 

3.) Regional War:

 

A war involving the given region’s two or more countries (groups of countries) operating through the use of either national or coalition armed forces commanding both conventional and nuclear capabilities within a single region confined by the waters of seas/oceans and aerospace, with the warring sides pursuing critical military and political goals. A regional war requires a full-fledged deployment of the armed forces and economic capacities, as well as the enhanced engagement of the material resources and moral courage available to the warring countries. Should any nuclear-have countries or their allies happen to participate in a regional war, such a war can feature the threat/risk of nuclear weapons being eventually employed.  In my opinion, this is the type of 

 

4.) Large-Scale War:

 

A war between coalitions of countries or larger world powers. It can be precipitated by escalation of an armed conflict, local or regional war by way of a significant number of countries from different world regions being effectively involved. In a large-scale war, the warring sides would pursue radical military and political goals. It would require that participating countries mobilize all of their available material resources and moral courage.

 

Modern Russian defense planning, while being reflective of the realistic grasp of Russia’s current resources and capabilities, is based on the assumption that the Russian Armed Forces together with other national troops should be prepared to repel aggression and rout the aggressor. Besides, the Russian Armed Forces should be ready to mount active (offensive and defensive) operations under any scenario of armed conflicts being unleashed and carried on in the conditions of the adversary resorting to massive use of modern and advanced lethal weapons, with assorted WMDs making no exception.

 

It is important to note that Russia's Armed Forces are trained to effectively wage two concurrent armed conflicts of any type in peacetime, during an emergency and to prosecute two local wars following completion of the full-fledged strategic deployment of the nation's Armed Forces.

 

Now you have some idea of how Russia's leadership views the missions and objectives of its armed forces.  Given the recent threats to the Russian homeland from overly and overtly aggressive Western politicians who wish to see their long-range weapons used to attack the fatherland, putting the missions and objectives of the Russian Armed Forces into perspective is important to understanding how they will respond to these provocations.

Russia and How to Flee the Western Neoliberal Agenda

The West is becoming increasingly polarized in its views on many issues, a great number of which are issues of morality.  The left believes that the right are actually "far right" and that they are racist, misogynistic, homophobic and religious ignoramuses and that they are "progressive" while the right believes that the left is pretty much responsible for the decay of society, the death of the family and the massive influx of illegal immigrants.  This polarization has become worse and worse over the past 10 years as left- and right-leaning politicians play on our differences.

 

There is, however, one nation that still retains its religious roots and is willing to allow Westerners who are disillusioned with the neoliberal agenda access to their traditional spiritual and moral values as you will see in this posting.

  

Here's how Russia's state news agency TASS reported these changes to Russia's immigration policies:

 

 

Here is the decree "On providing humanitarian support to persons who share traditional Russian spiritual and moral values" in Russian:

 

Here are some quotes from the decree starting with its intent:

 

"In order to protect fundamental human rights and freedoms, support individuals who have made a free choice in favor of spiritual, cultural, legal connection with Russian Federation..."

 

The decree changes Russia's immigration laws substantially as follows:

 

"Grant the right to apply for a temporary residence permit without taking into account the approved Government of the Russian Federation quotas and without submitting a document which:

 

1.) confirms proficiency in the Russian language

  

2.) confirms knowledge of the history of Russia and the basics of the legislation of the Russian Federation"

 

Eligible applicants include "foreign citizens and stateless persons who have expressed a desire to move to the Russian Federation to live from foreign countries citizenship or permanent residence based on non-acceptance of the policies implemented by these states, which impose destructive neoliberal ideological guidelines that contradict traditional Russian spiritual and moral values."

 

The decree goes on to state that there is a list of foreign states (which will be supplied by the government and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs within 30 days) that are implementing policies imposing destructive neoliberal ideologies which contradict traditional Russian spiritual and moral values and have been approved by the Government.

  

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russia Federation will issue a temporary residence permit to applicants provided that there are no grounds for refusal.  The Ministry will issue a single-entry ordinary private visa for three months on the basis of a decision of the head of a diplomatic mission or consular office of the Russian Federation to issue a visa to a foreign citizen or stateless person.

While the Western media has us believing that Russia is part of the evil empire, in fact, in my two visits to the nation and areas well outside of the normal tourist attractions, I found that there was very little difference between life in Russia and life in the West other than language.  Russians were helpful when we needed assistance (or even when it appeared that we needed assistance and actually didn't) and were most curious about life in the West and how we viewed their nation and their leader.  Of all of the nations that I have visited and lived in during my lifetime, I would say that Russia has the potential to be quite a livable destination and were I at a different point in my life, the offer of a 3 month visa would be worth considering even as an exercise to gain a better understanding of Russia, its unique people and their spirituality and morality.

Russia's Military Recruitment Efforts - Bringing Religion into the Special Military Operation in Ukraine

Here is a newly released video from the Russian Ministry of Defense:

The 90 second video shows a battle apparently between Russian and Ukrainian forces with an appeal to Russia's wide-ranging religious groups:

 

1.) Orthodox Christianity - an icon of St. George, an important saint in the Orthodox religion, who represents the trump of God and goodness over evil and the Devil.  In this part of the video, the soldier is shown making the sign of the cross as he is under artillery fire.

 

2.) Islam - a tank crew member is shown reciting a Muslim prayer.

 

3.) Buddhism - a sniper reads a Buddhist matra while holding his prayer beads.

 

4.) Orthodox Christianity - a Russian infantryman is shown wearing and kissing a silver cross around his neck with a Russian armoured column coming wot his rescue with a caption reading "We are [ ]. God is with us."  The blank space is filled with the names of two dozen major ethnic groups that populate Russia, including Ukrainians at the end of the video, stating that "We are Russians" (Мы русские) at the very end.

 

5.) Islam - a tank driver is shown praying to Allah.

 

It's interesting to see how Russia is invoking religious beliefs to attract Russian citizens to the special operations in Ukraine.

Let's look at some statistics.  According to the Ministry of Defense's 2023 Activity Results we find the following:

 

1.) 650,000 Russian military personnel have gained combat experience during the special military operation.

 

2.) Over 1,500 people apply for military service every day.

 

3.) 490,000 contract military personnel and volunteers joined the Russian Armed Forces in 2023.

 

4.) over 4,000 Russian students have volunteariy taken an academic leave and are performing combat missions.

 

5.) 272 people have become Heroes of Russia/Gold Star, the highest honorary title of the Russian Federation bestowed on individuals that are connected to a heroic feat of valour, during the special military operation.

 

6.) over 320,000 people have received state honours during the special military operation.

 

7.) over 13,500 mercenary fighters have arrived in Ukraine with 8,500 from Europe, 1,700 from Asia and 2,700 from North and South America.

So, why would Russia feel that it is necessary to recruit more fighters into its military?  Here are just two of many reasons:

1.) NATO's eastward expansion to Russia's borderlands:

2.) The Eastern Aurora mission also on Russia's doorstep:

  

Russia, the beneficiary of Nazi Germany's incursion into its heartland that led to the deaths of tens of millions of Soviet citizens and soldiers feels threatened for some reason.

Here's a final quote from the ministry, encouraging Russians of all ethnicities and religious affiliations to come together to face a common enemy:

 

"We are Russians. God is with us. Prayer is not just words, it is a powerful force. Be with the strong, be with us, join your comrades."

Isn't it interesting how God is seemingly on both sides of a war no matter how just the cause may appear to be?