In Ukraine, the marketing battle to make the army “sexy”

Photo: Sergey Bobok Agence France-Presse “I love the Third Assault Brigade,” reads this recruitment sign for the Ukrainian Third Assault Brigade in Kharkiv.

Léa Dauple – Agence France-Presse, Maryke Vermaak – Agence France-Presse, Sergii Volskyi – Agence France-Presse in the Donetsk region and Kiev

Published at 8:47

• Europe

The billboard can’t be missed on the streets of Kharkiv, a large city in northeastern Ukraine. An elegant young woman, her hair neatly styled and a pistol in her hand, is huddled against a motorcyclist. The slogan ? “I like the third assault.”

The polished aesthetic is that of a perfume ad, the tone that of a dating app, but the goal is to encourage passers-by to join this famous brigade, the army being sorely lacking in recruits.

Private Volodymyr Degtyarov, wearing sunglasses and a blue jacket, is in charge of communications for the rival Khartia brigade. Seeing these signs, he admits, makes him “a little jealous.”

In the army, no one “had done something so courageous” in terms of marketing, says this 44-year-old man, on the terrace of a café. “With this, military service looks sexy.” »

Photo: Sergey Bobok Agence France-Presse The billboard featuring an elegant young woman, pistol in hand, huddled against a motorcyclist, cannot be missed in Kharkiv.

“Women Will Adore You”

In May, Ukraine passed a new mobilization law to enlist tens of thousands of men, but its army remains short-handed compared to Russian troops.

However, the country's brigades can recruit their own soldiers, bypassing the traditional process whose effectiveness has been criticized.

Advertising posters, social networks that can accumulate hundreds of thousands of subscribers: the brigades promote themselves, competing with each other in the hope of attracting the best recruits and donations.

For Volodymyr Degtyarov, who ran a PR agency before the invasion, all this makes for “very good, healthy competition,” with victory as the common goal.

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A chance to stand out by showing your brigade’s “personality,” or, in marketing terms, its “brand.”

For example, the recent campaign by the Third Assault Brigade, battling the Russians and looking for energetic soldiers, “targets a young audience and says, ‘Join us and women will love you,’” he says.

Photo: Sergey Bobok Agence France-Presse The recent campaign of the Third Assault Brigade “targets a young audience and tells them: 'join us and women will love you'”, analyzes Volodymyr Degtyarov.

Volodymyr Degtyarov's brigade, for example, insists on attractive salaries in order to reach a “slightly older” and more experienced audience.

Ivan, a soldier in charge of communications for another unit, the Aidar battalion, explains that he is trying to show “modern” equipment. Old Soviet weapons are unlikely to appeal to candidates.

The 28-year-old soldier, met in the Donetsk region, nevertheless assures that he is “honest” and avoids playing too much on “emotions” to attract candidates.

This is precisely what many criticize the campaign of the third assault brigade and its model with a revolver for, which has sparked a debate in Ukraine. For its critics, it gives a false glamorous image of war.

“All means are good,” retorts Yuri, a fifty-year-old encountered by AFP in the streets of kyiv.

If a passerby “sees a photo of a soldier with a pretty young woman, he will imagine himself in his place,” he continues.

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The effectiveness of these campaigns is difficult to estimate. According to Volodymyr Degtyarov, it remains a necessary step.

“There are 150 brigades in Ukraine. If you go and talk to people, they can maybe name 10, 15,” he says. Those that don’t communicate enough ? “We don’t know them.”

Volodymyr’s Khartya brigade says it gets more potential candidates when it increases its advertising, without giving specific figures.

But budgets leave little room for imagination, and Volodymyr Degtyarov gets discounts on advertising space in the city and from advertising agencies.

Ivan from the Aidar battalion sticks to cheaper social media. Its main platform is Facebook, with around 172,000 subscribers.

The messaging service Telegram is also widely used, particularly for its more flexible moderation policy. Brigades share images of Russian soldiers being hunted and killed by drones there, for example.

On Telegram, “you can show everything,” including weapons and violence, notes Ivan, railing against the deletion of some of his videos by more scrutinizing platforms.

This world of social networks was a total discovery for the young man. Before the war, he was a space engineer.

“I had no experience,” he says, slipping in, in an apologetic tone, that he “only” knew how to build rockets.