‘War is the realm of uncertainty’, said the Prussian military analyst Carl von Clausewitz, and this would seem to apply very well to affairs in Russia at the moment. Following September’s shock ‘partial mobilisation’, rumours have swirled around since of another mass-mobilisation due imminently. Having got Russian New Year (the country’s main December celebration) out of the way, there were fears that Putin might announce the conscription of several hundred thousand more men.

This assumption was based on several factors, not least Putin’s original refusal to limit the mobilisation and the predictions of Ukrainian intelligence – who said 5 January was earmarked for a second wave. A public demand, recently issued by a supposed local ‘GONGO’ (an Orwellian ‘government-organised non-governmental organisation’), also rang alarm bells. Called ‘Soldiers’ Widows of Russia’, the group has demanded a ‘large-scale mobilisation corresponding to the situation that has developed on our borders.’

So shameless is the campaign – so oblivious to horrendous Russian losses on the battlefield – that some believe them the product of Ukrainian psy-ops

Yet 5 January has now come and gone and instead – quite the reverse – Putin called for a now-broken ceasefire to coincide with Orthodox Christmas (6/7 January). This decision has left home-grown hardliners like Igor Girkin spluttering that the Russian leader has ‘made a bold and decisive step to complete failure and capitulation in the current war.’ Nothing in Russia seems to add up at the moment: all one can state is that war’s rumour mill is working overtime and the ‘fog of war’ is spreading daily.

Another issue wrapped up in gossip and speculation is the infamous series of conscription adverts appearing on Russian social media in December. The adverts – horribly misjudged in tone – have created something of a tempest in a tea-glass, many denouncing them as slanderous towards the military. Significantly, no one has taken responsibility for making them, their origins a matter of conjecture. In a style several leagues below the most bargain-basement soap opera, the adverts are a mix of cheesy appeals to patriotism and to financial self-interest, along with blatant untruths. They feature a range of chipboard characters whose lives, they say, have improved beyond all recognition since joining Putin’s army.

Showing perfectly equipped soldiers with the latest military technology, in a tone which defies belief, they also give some indication of what high-ups in the military actually think of the people they are trying to recruit (and go a long way to explaining why Russian soldiers have been tossed into battle without adequate weaponry or protective clothing – underneath both is a contempt for Russian citizens). In one – complete with saccharine soundtracks – a soldier’s screen wife simpers about how proud she is of her volunteer-husband. ‘You made the right choice…I always dreamt of such a husband. We’re proud of you, the whole country.’

‘You are very similar to your grandfather,’ bleats a soldier’s screen-mother. ‘He went the whole way to victory. I’m waiting for you to come back victorious. I’m very proud of my strong adult son.’

Meanwhile, a bright-eyed little boy drawing a picture of a Russian soldier on whom the sun shines merrily pops up onscreen to talk about his volunteer father. ‘My dad is strong and brave….He called us from his new job. Everything’s okay. He’s got great new friends. It’s a difficult job but interesting for him.’ The child’s voiceover addresses his absent parent. ‘You should see things through to the end, just as you’re always telling me. Whatever you start you must finish…When I grow up, I will be a soldier. I will protect my family and my motherland.’

Yet this trio of offerings is, in the scheme of things, relatively idealistic – others appeal openly to potential volunteers’ self-interest and desperation to claw their way out of poverty. In one, a needy mother out of central casting clucks over her son’s return home:

‘How you’ve changed! I didn’t recognise you. Only half a year gone by, but you’ve become such an adult! Let’s eat, my darling boy.’

She has, we discover, recently managed to redecorate her home with her son’s new army paycheque. Later, he meets the hot local girl for whom he previously nursed a silent, thwarted passion. ‘You’re such a man now,’ she whispers caressingly. ‘Look what the army can do with people.’ The ad finishes, as do many others, with the slogan, ‘Contract in the Army – Manly Decision’.

Even the war-hardliner Telegram channels are irked by these ads, many of which imply that service in the Russian army is a simple question of roubles and kopeks, not national feeling at all. In one of the most brazen, a man is collared at home by loan sharks to whom he owes money and who have graffitied his door with the word ‘Debtor’. But he is undaunted:

‘I signed the (army) contract. Please be aware there is law no. 387, a credit holiday. My only debt is to my motherland. Please wash my door.’

‘Whoever serves,’ confirms a voiceover, ‘will get a guaranteed holiday from debt. You have two choices: to protect yourself from debt collectors, or to protect your motherland. If you protect your motherland, the motherland protects you.’

The loan sharks, as they scrub away the offending slogan, are momentarily shamed. ‘I suppose we should change our jobs,’ says one of them.

‘Definitely, brother,’ says the other.

So shameless is the campaign – so apparently oblivious to horrendous Russian losses on the battlefield – that some believe them the product of Ukrainian psy-ops, to smear the Russian high command. Yet the Telegram channel Baza was able to establish that at least one of the adverts was made in Khimki District, Moscow region, and the actors – though hardly luminaries, they are known faces from Russian TV – were, it is reported, paid about 10,000 roubles (approximately £120) for a day’s work. ‘Look how clever the Ukrainians are,’ said one sardonic comment below a post. ‘They can organise these things even inside Russia.’

If not made by the Ukrainians, then who? Others believe they were overseen by Yevgeny Prigozhin, erstwhile organiser, allegedly, of a pro-Putin troll factory in St Petersburg and reportedly the main recruiting officer for the Wagner group. Prigozhin has both the wherewithal and arguably the cynicism to produce such adverts, as well as, perhaps, the poor taste to let them pass. One need only read his comment on a Wagner deserter put to death with a sledgehammer on camera (‘A dog’s death for a dog’) or listen to his remarks on a heap of Russian corpses in Bakhmut – ‘Their contract is over. They’re coming home’ – to see that Prigozhin thinks and speaks, as it were, in rather broad, dark brushstrokes.

A further theory holds that they were made for television to normalise an atmosphere of mobilisation – it’s sold to you like a Renault Clio – but judged tasteless at the last moment and relegated to the internet.

Whoever their progenitor, they are just part of the growing madness in Russia right now, and the increasing desperation of the military to find new recruits for its meat grinder. These, at any rate, are two things that the fog of war, however dense this cold Russian January, is powerless to blot out.