Russia is looking to recruit “real men” to fight in its invasion of Ukraine, the British Defense Ministry said Sunday in its intelligence update posted on Twitter.
The ads for the new campaign on billboards, TV, and social media sites also feature the financial rewards of signing up for the Russian military, but it is “highly unlikely” that Russia will meet its target of 400,000 volunteer recruits, the British ministry said.
Ukraine announced new sanctions against individuals or legal entities who support or invest in “Russian aggression.”
In his nightly video address Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Kyiv has sanctioned 322 companies that manufacture weapons and military components for Russia’s military against Ukraine.
Additional sanctions have been imposed against “individuals and legal entities that help circumvent sanctions against Russia,” he said.
“The task is to remove any opportunity for Russia to circumvent sanctions,” he added, “the tougher the sanctions against the Russian war economy, the faster the end of the aggression will be.”
So far, Western sanctions against Russia have not dampened the wealth of Russian billionaires.
According to Forbes World’s Billionaires list, the wealth of Russia’s billionaires rose to about half a trillion dollars in 2023.
The overall wealth of Russian billionaires jumped from $353 billion in 2022 to $505 billion in 2023, and 22 people were added to the number of super-rich Russians, raising the total to 110.
That number does not include the ultra-wealthy Russians who have renounced their Russian citizenship.
The data “fly in the face of significant Western sanctions and a troubled Russian economy that shrank 2.1% last year,” Forbes says. – gb
