Russia is resorting to desperate measures to recruit soldiers

IN SEPTEMBER Russian television audiences will be treated to a new hour-long daily show. Its name is still to be decided, but the producers are already : the wives and mothers of military recruits. The participants must evoke the heroism of their husbands and sons and tell tear-jerking stories that will serve as an accompaniment to the Kremlin’s plans to throw more young men into the meat-grinder that is its war with Ukraine.