Russian Military Recruitment Video Embraces Dark Side

A Russian military recruitment video has surfaced, and it's unsurprisingly dark and ominous.

Did you expect a cheery and patriotic pitch to service from the former Soviet state?

The video opens with young man staring intently at the audience with a I'm-not-here-to-joke-around look on his face (Image source: YouTube).

According to a translation, the video shares the new slogan the Russian military is using to attract fresh recruits.

“This is … the first day of your new life.”

The video, which first appeared online in early May, shows a young recruit thinking back to his time kicking a soccer ball around his neighborhood, hanging out with friends and lying in a wheat field with his lady, noted U.S. News & World Report.

But then the video abruptly shifts back to the dark, cold world of the military newbie, where the young man is told to "find his enemy."

Those beds do not look comfortable (Image source: YouTube).

“Who you were yesterday doesn’t concern anyone anymore ... to know yourself is to know the limits of your abilities. To hell with limitations! Are you ready to break yourself, every day?” the video asks.

“Here pain makes you stronger, scars are a daily occurrence ... without an enemy there is no battle, and without a battle there is no victory. But in reality, the main enemy … is you, the you from yesterday."

Image source: YouTube

Image source: YouTube

The video shifts between shots of the recruit going through training obstacles, then jumping out of a plane and finally laying in a snowy field and taking out a bad guy with his rifle.

We get it already, you have an intimidating stare (Image source: YouTube).

The video surfaces at a time when Russian military spending has increased by almost five percent to $88 billion, and devoting a larger share of their gross domestic product on military than the United States for first time since 2003.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel urged NATO members in Europe to increase their military spending Friday, calling Russia’s intervention in Ukraine a “clarifying moment” for the alliance.

“In recent years, one of the biggest obstacles to alliance investment has been a sense that the end of the Cold War ushered in an end of history, an end to insecurity, at least in Europe, and the end of aggression by nation-states,” Mr. Hagel said in a speech. “But Russia’s actions in Ukraine shatter that myth.”

Check out the full video, here:

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(H/T: U.S. News & World Report)

Follow Elizabeth Kreft (@elizabethakreft) on Twitter.