Russia’s holy war now the Kremlin is turning to religion as casualties soar and morale crumbles

According to estimates, Russia has lost over 300,000 dead and 600,000 wounded since the war began. By way of comparison, Russia lost 15,000 men in a decade in Afghanistan.

Adding to this loss of life is a strategic frustration.

The Kremlin’s men have struggled to breakthrough a relatively static frontline, and superb Ukrainian defensive tactics, supplemented by drone technology, have made any attempted offensives expensive.

To try and incentivise Russian forces to fight on the Kremlin has turned to religion, producing a religiously-charged recruitment video which was uploaded to YouTube last year.

The video shows a man in a trench repeating the Lord’s Prayer as he crosses himself before an Orthodox icon as bullets rattle all around. Next, a helmeted soldier in a vehicle begins to pray in Arabic “Bismillah Rahman al Raheem” (in the name of Allah the Compassionate, the Merciful).

Later in the video, a man in a tank recites the Islamic shahada declaration of faith. We then see a man who appears to be from a Siberian indigenous group, throat singing and thumbing Buddhist prayer beads as he prepares to take a shot. Subsequently, a visibly shaken soldier kisses a cross around his neck before throwing a grenade to clear a room.

The video ends with a list of ethnic groups flashing rapidly, before ending with the phrase “We are Russians and God is With Us”.

The war effort has fallen disproportionately on Russia’s ethnic and religious minorities, largely due to their high birth rates relative to the general population. In Muslim regions such as Chechnya and Dagestan, large families are the norm.

So too in the remote regions of the Russian Far East, populated by indigenous Siberian and Turkic groups, where higher birth rates are also common and have been for decades.

This has meant that the age cohort for conscripts is disproportionately comprised of ethnic and religious minorities, whose birth rates have outpaced ethnic Russians for some time. Majority-minority regions of Russia are also very poor, therefore the local population tends to be more susceptible to financial bonuses for voluntarily joining the army.

For these reasons, the Kremlin’s video seeks to show elevated respect for their religious traditions, and to stress the unity of these different groups. The flashing message and its ecumenical promise that God (however different groups in Russia understand the term) is on their side, is meant to keep these minority groups happy.

Perhaps the most striking thing about the recruitment video is how badly the troops in the video are doing. They are shown pinned down by fire or visibly scared as they fight in buildings.

Most militaries tend to portray a glorified image of military life, rather than showing the muck-and-bullets side of things.

As the wounded return home, grieving families mourn the dead, and information on the war filters back to the home front, nobody can deny how bad things are for Russia.

Even with the Kremlin’s propaganda skills, the truth cannot be concealed. Essentially, Moscow is saying to potential recruits “Things are hard and scary, but your faith, which we fully respect and celebrate, will get you through it”.

They used to say there are no atheists in the trenches. While that is not true, the Kremlin is betting the promise of fellow believers in the trenches will drive enlistment.

But as Russian losses mount, and a breakthrough at the front seems unlikely, it may take more than religiously-orientated recruitment to turn the tide for Moscow.

____________________________

Michael McManus is Director of Research at The Henry Jackson Society. @MichaelMcM71067

LBC Opinion provides a platform for diverse opinions on current affairs and matters of public interest.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official LBC position.

To contact us email opinion@lbc.co.uk