---
title: '''KRAKEN: Temper your will'' recruitment billboard, Kharkiv'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/kraken-zagartuy-volyu-kharkiv-billboard-2023/
description: 'Roadside billboard in Kharkiv: a bearded man in a plate carrier, arms crossed, named as ''Serhiy Velychko'', stands in front of a smoky montage of armed…'
section: Collection
---

[Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)

[!['KRAKEN: Temper your will' recruitment billboard, Kharkiv](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/kraken-zagartuy-volyu-kharkiv-billboard-2023.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/kraken-zagartuy-volyu-kharkiv-billboard-2023.jpg)

# 'KRAKEN: Temper your will' recruitment billboard, Kharkiv

Roadside billboard in Kharkiv: a bearded man in a plate carrier, arms crossed, named as 'Serhiy Velychko', stands in front of a smoky montage of armed soldiers, a helicopter and drones, beside the unit name KRAKEN and the slogan 'Temper your will', with a QR code, a phone number and two emblems. The tell is the named, unit-badged individual posed as the proof of what joining makes of a person.

## Text on the object

Original (Ukrainian) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
KRAKEN
ЗАГАРТУЙ ВОЛЮ

[QR code]
+38 068 228 25 44
KRAKEN
[emblem ring text, partly legible: ВІЙСЬКОВА РОЗВІДКА УКРАЇНИ]

СЕРГІЙ
ВЕЛИЧКО
```

English translation (machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader)

```
KRAKEN
TEMPER YOUR WILL

[QR code]
+38 068 228 25 44
KRAKEN
[emblem ring text, partly legible: MILITARY INTELLIGENCE OF UKRAINE]

SERHIY
VELYCHKO
```

The QR code is not decoded. A small inventory label under the frame is part of the billboard structure, not the message. The emblem ring text is only partly legible at this resolution.

[← 'Defending the state! Defending independence!' State Bureau of Investigation billboard, Kropyvnytskyi](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dbr-na-zakhysti-derzhavy-billboard-2023/) ['Bravery is in our DNA' Brave.ua panel, Berlin →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brave-ua-bravery-in-our-dna-berlin-2023/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Bronze sestertius of Gaius (Caligula), reverse S P Q R P P OB CIVES SERVATOS in an oak wreath](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sestertius-caligula-ob-cives-servatos-0037/) (Roman Empire · 0037 · Testimonial, Transfer)
- [Seljuq gold dinar of Sanjar, dated 493 AH, with the Abbasid caliph named on one face](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/seljuq-gold-dinar-sanjar-caliph-name-1099/) (Great Seljuk Empire · 1099 · Testimonial)
- [J'Accuse...! Lettre au Président de la République (J'Accuse...! Letter to the President of the Republic), L'Aurore, 13 January 1898](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/jaccuse-laurore-front-page-1898/) (France · Jan 13, 1898 · Testimonial). Content note: Newspaper page about a wrongful-conviction controversy; the letter text refers to a prisoner held in torture-like conditions on Devil's Island; no graphic imagery.
- [The Speaker, front page 'The Week', 22 June 1901: Hobhouse report and 'methods of barbarism'](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/speaker-hobhouse-camps-methods-of-barbarism-1901/) (United Kingdom · Jun 22, 1901 · Name-calling, Testimonial). Content note: Text on deaths of women and children in British camps in South Africa, with mortality rates.
- ["The War with Japan" (Puck cover, 23 October 1907)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/puck-the-war-with-japan-1907/) (United States · Oct 23, 1907 · Testimonial, Scapegoating)
- [Bande Mataram (Paris), memorial page to Madan Lal Dhingra, 17 August 1909](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/bande-mataram-paris-dhingra-memorial-1909/) (France · Aug 17, 1909 · Testimonial, Transfer)
- [Indian Opinion (Phoenix, Natal), page 266: 'Natal Mercury's Comments' and 'The Durban Conference' during the coal-mine strike, 29 October 1913](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/indian-opinion-natal-mercury-durban-conference-1913/) (Union of South Africa · Oct 29, 1913 · Testimonial)
- ['Do your duty bravely. Fear God. Honour the King.' Lord Kitchener postcard (about 1914)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/kitchener-duty-bravely-postcard/) (United Kingdom · 1914 · Testimonial, Transfer)