An advertising video “Be like Sasha” has gone viral on social networks, in which the Gosuslugi portal allegedly offers to sign up as volunteers to solve financial problems. We checked whether Gosuslugi actually created such a video.

The video “Be like Sasha” gained popularity in Ukrainian Telegram channels (for example, “Ukraine is in shock" And "Insider UA"), where users criticized “Gosuslugi” for an absurd solution to financial problems. Twitter user "Frodo and Mordor" wrote: "Be like Sasha, die for a bicycle." Anatoly Shariy commented: “Now at least it’s obvious not only to me who is given the media and “PR” in the Russian Federation. What professionals, what creative geniuses.” The video also went viral YouTube, "VKontakte", Facebook and some Media. Some users created parodies on video.

At the beginning of October 2022, shortly after the President of the Russian Federation announced partial mobilization, the Gosuslugi portal launched the service “Become a volunteer" By filling out this form, you can either sign up as a volunteer or enroll in military service under a contract, depending on the desire of the applicant and his compliance with the selection criteria. Apparently, the video “Be like Sasha” is dedicated to the first option, when the applicant becomes a volunteer and joins a volunteer unit.

Many aspects of volunteer service listed in the video correspond to the official promises of the Ministry of Defense and the President of the Russian Federation. For example, the monetary allowance of a SVO participant located in a combat zone is really amounts to approximately 200,000 rubles. Some of the other benefits mentioned in the video, such as “free treatment for yourself and family, government benefits, and combat veteran status,” are also true. November 4, 2022 Russian President Putin called social benefits for military personnel and SVO volunteers. And November 10 signed a law granting combat veteran status to volunteers.

However, the rest of the promises from the video—“a new profession and career growth”—do not apply to volunteers. Volunteers don't count military personnel. At the end of the contract (usually three months) expectedthat they will return to their previous place of work. Career growth in the armed forces is also not expected for volunteers.

In addition to these inaccuracies, several other aspects raise doubts about the reliability of this video.

We were unable to find this video in any official State Services account (“VKontakte", YouTube or Rutube).
How reported the pro-government Telegram channel “War on Fake”, technical support of “Gosuslug” also denied the creation of the video.
The video does not take into account the official rules for the design of content on Gosuslugi, such as the standards for using the official logo. According to system brand identification, the logo should be placed on a white background, and not on a gray one, as in the “Be like Sasha” video. The logo font in the video also differs from the design style of Gosuslug. And according to the brand book, “it is prohibited to write the brand in any typeface” (system and commercial fonts such as Arial, Times New Roman, Comic Sans and others).

*Official logo (top) and logo used in the video (bottom)*

The video does not provide links to the Gosuslugi portal and generally contains no information on how you can sign up as a volunteer through Gosuslugi. Official videos of the portal are usually clearly show step-by-step application process on your computer or smartphone screen.

All these arguments indicate that the Gosuslugi portal did not take part in the creation of the video. The video “Be like Sasha” appeared on the Internet on the evening of November 30. The earliest publication we found is fast anonymous Ukrainian Telegram channel “Zaporozhye Mushroom Picker”, published at 20:01 Moscow time with the caption “Be like Sasha, come home in a bag!” The authors of the channel do not specify how this video came to them. A few hours later it had already spread across Telegram, VKontakte, YouTube and other social networks.

Thus, it is unknown who created the video “Be like Sasha” and for what purpose: to advertise the opportunity to sign up as a volunteer or to ridicule this service. What is clear is that the Gosuslugi portal had nothing to do with the creation of the video.

Cover image: Telegram