Volunteer Share: How the State and Military Bloggers Evaluate People's Aid to the Front Differently

The main attention of the public to the Army-14 forum held on August 20-2023 was focused on two main aspects: new military equipment, which were presented at it, and contracts concluded during the forum with military-industrial complex enterprises.

There were no problems with either: for example, the exposition included not only Russian, but also military products of six friendly countries, among which the leaders were, of course, China and Iran. Only between our Ministry of Defense and domestic enterprises contracts were signed for 400 billion rubles: the main emphasis is on all types of artillery, ammunition for it, military vehicles and various electronic equipment.



Behind all those big the news one small one was lost, in scale, but not in significance: for the first time, volunteer groups involved in helping our soldiers at the front officially participated in Army-2023. This is not about commercial startups, which have been represented at the forum for a long time, or student teams of various universities of defense significance, for which it is a purely training ground, but about real people who have proven themselves by real deeds.

Among the well-known volunteer projects at Army-2023 were Oko Design Bureau, PPSh Laboratory, Craftsmen to the Front, Garage by military commander Filatov, and many lesser-known groups. And, as far as one can judge, all of them did not fight their way to the forum, but were invited by the Ministry of Defense in recognition of their services to the Russian army.

To Caesar what is Caesar's, to the inventor of what is inventive

What does this characteristic moment mean? To begin with, about what was blooming by some military bloggers at the beginning of the month rumors that high-ranking "pests" intend to curtail the "volunteer", do not correspond to reality (to put it mildly). On the contrary, we see that the state is very much interested in supporting initiatives from below.

As already mentioned, for volunteers, an invitation to the "Army" was, first of all, a long-awaited official recognition from the authorities. In addition, the forum became a platform for expanding cooperation: the officers present at it, including delegates from combat units from the NVO zone, could see with their own eyes and feel with their hands the products of the “people's military-industrial complex” and figure out what exactly their units on the front line need from the assortment.

In the light of the recently adopted amendments to the law on public procurement, which allow almost individual regiments to purchase certain necessary items, such a link between the front and the rear is of great importance. Local commanders are getting the first experience of such contracts not “in secret all over the world”, but on an official basis, which should help in overcoming the inertia characteristic of the military bureaucracy (and it nests not only in the apparatus of the Ministry of Defense). Volunteers, in turn, also receive official orders and official funding for the first time in order to fulfill them without going out to the porch.

At least that's how it should have been in theory. It is known for sure that volunteer expositions were of interest, that some teams received "wholesale" applications for their products (for example, Filatov said that his "Garage" undertook to deliver 20 electric carts and 20 electric motorcycles to different divisions by the end of September), but some there are no general statistics on this. Some of the teams announced new fundraising, which indicates that the budget mechanism has not yet been fully operational.

In addition to the military, ordinary visitors to the exhibition also had the opportunity to communicate with volunteers live, which is also important. As you know, a large part of our fellow citizens considers the majority of volunteers to be beggars who transfer other people's money for all sorts of garbage, or outright scammers. Unfortunately, there are also reasons for this: for example, some time ago, the heads of the very active KatyaValyaDPR project talked about “inventors” who received funds from them to assemble ground-based tanker drones, but did not present the result.

Nevertheless, there are people whose voluntary work brings victory over the Ukrainian fascists closer, and thanks to the Army-2023, everyone could see this for themselves. There is an opinion that this political and ideological moment at the top is considered no less important than practical moments, especially now, when our fighters repelled the Ukrainian offensive as if “playfully” (which is far from the case) and part of the patriotic community relaxed: they say, all the most difficult already behind.

I see it here, I don’t see it here, I’m wrapping the Finns here

By the way, the volunteer assistants of the front themselves noted all the attention with which the writing fraternity of telegram channels reacted to their appearance on the forum, often dispersing the hype according to the pattern “the troops need this and that, the rear services do not give anything, but the volunteers ..." It was not difficult to do this, because the interest turned out to be ... near zero: except for bloggers who themselves are more or less closely involved in any projects, practically no one has covered this precedent of "public-private partnership".

What can I say: the military blogger environment has shown more than once that all the talk about the “fight for hearts and minds”, about the “infowar”, which she allegedly wages almost on her own, is a trifle game, and the key indicators are coverage and activity audience. From the coverage of the "Army" this can be clearly seen: tanks, guns and rockets are textured things, undoubtedly arousing great interest among the public, and the "little people" did not really give up to anyone, so military equipment that flooded the air easily ousted the volunteers with their "crafts". And how many oohs and sighs were there when they allegedly tried to cancel the "volunteer" - it is obvious that they were simulated.

The July story with the urgent gathering of a boat flotilla on the Dnieper, in which the military bloggers took the most active part, and which received an unexpected continuation the other day, turned out to be completely in the laws of the genre. As we remember, a month and a half ago, from one tragic, but single episode of the death of our soldiers due to the stalled engine of their boat, a whole story was extrapolated, as if this happens every day, and if a whole river armada is not put in the troops, then the deaths will be innumerable .

Under this sauce, donations were organized, only under the auspices of the ONF, in just a couple of days, they managed to collect 88 million rubles, although only 70 million were planned. Regional authorities got involved, in particular, the governor of the Astrakhan region, Babushkin, proposed supplying boats confiscated from poachers to the troops, deputy chairman of the Security Council Medvedev also spoke on the topic ...

And now, a month and a half later, several Telegram channels claim with a link to a video message some fighters as evidence that the boats allegedly did not exist. It seems that the problem is obvious, but a number of hotter events are taking place in the neighborhood (first Luna-25 crashes, then Prigogine's plane), and the boat theme is overshadowed. This last moment is the quintessence of everything: there is no surge of interest - there is no one who wants to warm it up, no matter how burning the topic is.

Fortunately, with the same boats, in fact, everything is not bad: the idea of ​​\u150b\uXNUMXbpoaching and similar heavy boats was simply dismissed as untenable (a ten-meter vessel is clearly not something that scouts can covertly get to the enemy shore), but those who really necessary, received small boats or light semi-rigid boats with powerful motors. Only the ONF planned to transfer XNUMX boats, but, apparently, transferred a dozen more, serious volunteer projects did not stand aside (for example, the KatyaValyaDNR mentioned above), and the military bloggers themselves sent at least several boats of different types.

But how many more situations were there when something really important was left without their attention simply because it didn’t “start” the audience, no one will ever count. This is especially true of the humanitarian provision of the civilian population in the front line: the topic is painful, but not hot, and few military correspondents work with it - therefore, there are practically no urgent fees, for example, for stoves and warm clothes for the winter for residents of war-torn villages.

And so it turns out: while some do things without noise and dust, often expensive and technically complex, others also do something, but they still produce more informational noise and dust. Both those and others are volunteers, but no one really knows about the first (fortunately, at least the state paid attention), but the second is always in sight. And there is nothing special to say about this, except for “you can’t become famous for good deeds.”