Russian Mayor Promises One Free Bag of Vegetables to Families of Men Sent to Fight in Ukraine

“Сожалею о вашей потере, вот картошка.”

According to Google Translate, that’s how to say “Sorry for your loss, here is a potato” in Russian. I’m not fluent in Russian but doubt that phrase comes across as any more sympathetic in that language than it does in English.

Nevertheless, a single bag of vegetables is the incentive being offered by one Russian mayor to the families of men conscripted to fight in the war in Ukraine as Vladimir Putin struggles to find men willing to die for his revanchist delusions of rebuilding the Soviet empire.

Yevgeny Grigoriev is the mayor of Yakutsk, the capital city of Russia’s Sakha Republic, a far-east Siberian republic along the Arctic Ocean. Yakutsk has the distinction of being the coldest city in the world, with an annual average temperature of 17.6 °F (−8.0 °C) and a record low of −83.9 °F (−64.4 °C).

In a video flagged by the BBC’s Francis Scarr, Grigoriev announced that the “families of mobilized residents of Yakutsk” could go to a “local support center” in October for a “one-off food package consisting of fresh vegetables,” touting the contents as including “cabbage, potato, carrot, beetroot, and onion.”

“If necessary, volunteers will deliver it to your home address,” Grigoriev added.

Last month, amid a series of setbacks for the Russians as the Ukrainians recaptured key sections of territory, Putin announced a “partial mobilization” of Russian citizens, prompting a spike in demand for flights out of Moscow and a flood of traffic along Russia’s borders, especially among men of draft age.

Watch the video above, via CNN.