'Fidelity and devotion are not just words' Russian Ministry of Defence poster

Poster from the Russian Ministry of Defence: a masked soldier in helmet and combat kit sits with a rifle across his knees, beside the words 'Fidelity and devotion are not just words'. The tell is the virtue vocabulary. 'Fidelity' and 'devotion' are declared to be more than words, but no deed, object or testable claim is attached to them.

Date: 2022
Period: Contemporary
Made by: Russian Ministry of Defence (z.mil.ru 'special military operation' posters section)
Region: Eastern Europe and Eurasia
Country: Russia
Medium: Poster
Issuer type: Military
Regime: Putin Government
Leader: Vladimir Putin
Audience: Domestic public
Purpose: Persuade or win support
Theme: War and the military
Event: Russian Invasion of Ukraine
Techniques: Glittering generalities
Regime: Russian Federation under Vladimir Putin
Leader: Vladimir Putin
Source: Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
Source: Wikimedia Commons (Russian Ministry of Defence, z.mil.ru), retrieved October 2, 2026
Rights: CC BY 4.0 (mil.ru terms of use, via Commons)
Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation (mil.ru), CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Text on the object

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

ВЕРНОСТЬ И
ПРЕДАННОСТЬ —
НЕ ПРОСТО
СЛОВА

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

FIDELITY AND
DEVOTION —
NOT JUST
WORDS

Large black text on a white field beside a cut-out photograph of the soldier; no other text is visible.

'Fidelity and devotion are not just words' Russian Ministry of Defence poster

Text on the object

Using the same techniques