Russia’s eastern call up

The Russian army is seeking recruits in Kazakhstan to send to the Far East, Reuters reports. Ads offering $5,300 for signing up, plus a $2,000 monthly salary and extra benefits, are appearing online in Kazakhstan, which is home to 3 million ethnic Russians. With Russian and Kazakh flags and a “Shoulder to Shoulder” slogan, the ads lead to a website recruiting soldiers to serve in the Sakhalin region in Russia’s Far East – eight time zones from the war in Ukraine but very close (40km) to the Japanese border. Ownership of Sakhalin was disputed by Russia and Japan for decades before the USSR established control there after the Second World War. Why Vladimir Putin needs more troops in Sakhalin is unclear, but garrisons there may have been depleted by losses in Ukraine, and he seems anxious to show he can still menace on multiple fronts at once. Four US destroyers were ordered to shadow a joint Russian-Chinese naval flotilla that sailed close to US waters off the Aleutian Islands last week in what one ex-captain called a historical first. 

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