Protesting soldiers’ mothers should be pressured with money to keep quiet. Apparently this is a new Kremlin strategy.
The protests by Russian soldiers’ wives appear to be worrying the Kremlin. In November there were small demonstrations against further mobilizations in Moscow and other cities. According to reports in the Moscow Times, these were immediately stopped. But that alone is probably not enough.
According to the British Ministry of Defense, Russian leader Vladimir Putin wants to use money to silence soldiers’ wives. “Investigations by independent Russian media and statements from protesting wives suggest that authorities have likely offered families larger cash payments in recent weeks to discourage them from protesting,” the British military said in its assessment.
Several protests in Russian cities
In mid-November, a group of women protested against the mobilization in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, the independent news agency Vyorstka reported. Similar protests planned in Moscow and St. Petersburg were not approved this month. Nevertheless, around 30 women managed to hold a short vigil in the Russian capital, according to the Moscow Times.
In addition, female relatives of the soldiers sent to Ukraine as part of President Vladimir Putin’s partial mobilization of 300,000 soldiers last year published a call on the Telegram channel “Pyty Domoi” (“Way Home”) in which they called “a called for “complete demobilization”. The channel was then classified as “fake” – according to British experts, by pro-Russian forces.
On November 27, the Telegram channel of the wives of the mobilized had a manifesto and petition against indefinite mobilization. In their appeal to the Russians, the women said that the state had turned its back on those who went into battle as part of the mobilization and their families. Stickers demanding that husbands come home are appearing on cars in a viral campaign.
The authors called the mobilization itself a “terrible mistake” from which “no one is protected.” The channel also criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin for saying that convicted murderers are pardoned and return from war after six months, while those mobilized do not.
Home leave required for soldiers
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The Russian “Council of Mothers and Wives”, a group of Russian soldiers’ wives and mothers, had repeatedly raised problems in the army in the past – until it was classified as a “foreign agent” in July. The group’s leader, Olga Tsukanova, was briefly arrested in January but was then released.
In September 2022, Putin announced a partial mobilization to increase troop strength, in which 300,000 reservists and former military personnel with certain military specializations and relevant experience would be deployed. Many of those drafted back then have been in service ever since. Two days ago, Putin announced that he wanted to mobilize an additional 170,000 soldiers.
A recent survey by the Russian organization Chronicles showed that support for the war of aggression against Ukraine is waning. Only 12 percent are clearly in favor of war, a majority demands peace.
