Mothers Against the Machine: How Putin’s Unthinkable Move Sparked a Courageous Uprising by Russian Moms
The Ukrainian march in Kursk, which won the respect of the whole world, messed up Putin’s plans and made him take a decision against which all the mothers of Russia rose. Tensions in the federation are growing.
The youngest Russian conscripts find themselves in the middle of a large-scale war. The long-standing practice of avoiding the participation of young conscripts in the Russian army in combat has been broken in the Kursk region, writes The New York Times.
In Russia, it has become standard practice not to send recruits to the front line. It is required by law and accepted by all parents who hope to protect their sons from the bloodshed of war. But the lightning invasion of the Ukraine in the Kursk region shook this situation.
Moscow is surprised. Suddenly, the war reached the conscripts. Hundreds of them were captured, dozens are considered missing and possibly dead.
Moscow’s decision to send untrained young soldiers to the battlefields of Afghanistan and Chechnya helped bolster domestic opposition that forced the Kremlin to end those conflicts. So during the chaotic first days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, when hundreds of troops appeared to have just arrived in units that had crossed the border, Putin ordered military commanders to send them home.
“Only professional soldiers will carry out their assigned tasks,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the time.
However, when the Ukraine invaded the Kursk region, Putin did not remember the conscripts. Some new soldiers from remote regions told their families that they were being sent to Kursk as reinforcements.
The unexpected danger to conscripts has sparked a fierce battle online between supporters of the war, who accuse fathers of “spoiling” their sons, and parents upset that a long-standing tradition has been broken.
The manager of “Akhmat” Apti Alaudinov recorded an appeal where he called on parents to stop “crying” that their sons should go to war, UNIAN adds.
The Russians were outraged, criticizing the lack of proper training, poor weapons and the small number of descendants of elite soldiers serving.
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