In Russia, the movement for the return of mobilized men from the war to Ukraine is gaining momentum. Relatives of soldiers write appeals, petitions and organize closed channels.
In Russia, relatives of those mobilized for the war in Ukraine began to more often and more confidently file requests for the return of their relatives from the front. The first sign was a picket in Moscow on November 7, and by the end of this month the movement had grown significantly: such rallies were being prepared in many regions of the Russian Federation, and nearby Russian soldiers were publishing manifestos and radical petitions.
All this happens under the coordination of different Telegram channels. The Kremlin traditionally talks about the work of foreign intelligence services, but is openly wary of such a situation because of its impact on the election campaign. Moreover, the Russian authorities were reluctant to suppress the rebellion by force.
Way home
According to information from the opposition Russian media, the demands of the masses for the round of mobilized people appeared in September 2023 in video broadcasts of the leaders of the regions of Rostov, Belgorod, Leningrad, Kaliningrad and Saratov . There are so many messages from the soldiers’ relatives that regional officials cannot ignore: the leadership of the Rostov region sent a request to the order of the Southern Military District to provide leave to the residents of the region mobilized in September 2022. The head of the Leningrad region prepared a similar appeal to the president of Russia and the Ministry of Defense.
The head of the State Duma Defense Committee, Andrei Kartapolov, was forced to respond to this massive demand.. On September 15, he announced that those mobilized would serve until the end of the war in Ukraine.
After that it came out “to set the stage with mass participation” was encouraged by the Telegram channel The Way Home. The channel was created by the sister of one of those mobilized on September 2, and other relatives very quickly began to join it. Now he has about 25 thousand subscribers.
At first, the participants in the channel wrote only comments, then they submitted requests to the State Duma asking for a round, and in November the participants became more radical: the movement demanded the departure of those mobilized from Ukraine.
In addition, women began to create their own small groups and other movements appeared, such as It’s time for those mobilized to go home And We are together. Total unity is known in 29 cities of Russia.
The hashtag has also gained widespread popularity “Za#balasya”. In Kazan they even started printing stickers on cars “Give back your wife, I’m playing”, “Mobile soldiers need demobilization“.
Petition and official manifesto
movement on November 12 Way home published an official manifesto. Women spoke for complete demobilization, “political stability and a decent life for every citizen of Russia”. In addition, the relatives demand respect for the Constitution and human rights, the right to social protest and public assembly, social justice for all.
On November 27, members of the movement submitted a petition for the return of those mobilized from the war and called on the Russians to sign it. In the comments on the document, women wrote that Putin’s promises “in fact turned out to be empty”, and the mobilization was a “terrible mistake”. According to the authors of the petition, “the state has abandoned the first responders to its call for help.”
“Fuck us and fuck you… We were punished for following the law. For most of our men, our men pay for the stability screen with blood, and we pay with health and tears,” wrote the authors of the post.
“They have given so much to their homeland that it cannot be repaid… We offer the world of Russia, but what is it? Looks like we took a wrong turn somewhere. Question: is there still a chance to jump?“, added the authors of the appeal.
Let’s remember that on July 19, mass protests took place in several Russian cities, where the relatives of those who were mobilized were supposed to announce their movement and officially present a manifesto and petition, but the local that authority did not coordinate the rallies, and some Telegram channels disappeared. in a strange way. In Novosibirsk, instead of a rally, a closed meeting of military relatives with officials was held.
Protests are “killed” by money
The Kremlin considers unrest by mobilized relatives a serious threat to the election campaign. They are afraid to suppress women by force, so as not to anger the “soldiers in the trenches,” so Putin recommends that regional officials pay everyone “the maximum amount of money,” the Russian publication wrote that Verstka, citing its interlocutors with federal and regional authorities.
Journalists note that the Kremlin is confident that the wives of those who have been mobilized are not so much waiting for the return of their husbands as “their salary cards.” So also, the solution is “payments at maximum value and without delay”.
If the relatives continue to rebel, regional officials should help the relatives write letters to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and promise to fix it – Putin recommended.
The Kremlin’s miscalculation
Anthropologist Alexandra Arkhipova said that the Russian authorities did not announce the round of conscripts, fearing mass panic before the elections, so groups of “mobilized wives” washed , forbidding, gently encouraged, but tensions with Russia are still growing.
According to him, during the month (from October 26 to November 27), the Yandex search engine recorded 934 thousand requests with the words “mobilized” and “home.” The picture shows the dynamics of one of these requests.
t.me/anthro_fun
Arkhipova also studied the index of interest – this is the ratio of the share of selected queries in a certain region to their share in all Yandex queries.
“So, I looked at where the request for “mobilized home” came from last month and where its number is off the charts according to the affinity index (ie, where people are most interested in this topic ). Look at the top 25 according to the affinity index. This is the whole of Crimea, Dagestan, southern Russia, as well as a parade of small towns in Siberia and the Urals – that is, the places where the mobilization hit the hardest. And where they are desperately waiting for the promise to return within a year,” the anthropologist said.
t.me/anthro_fun
A new movement of relatives of conscripts unites Russian women with different attitudes to the war in Ukraine. There are girls who openly despise Putin and demand an end to the conflict. But the majority of women “are still not against SVO and support the president in this decision.” And in posts there are channel administrators Way home remember that they are “patriots of their country and wish it success”.
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Source: korrespondent
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.