Several individuals arrested in Moscow during demonstration by Russian soldiers’ spouses.
According to reports from independent Russian news sources, a protest took place in central Moscow on Saturday where over twenty individuals, primarily journalists, were arrested. The protest was organized by family members of Russian soldiers being sent to Ukraine, who are pleading for their loved ones to come back.
The family members came together to place flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, located outside the Kremlin. This was in remembrance of 500 days since Russian President Vladimir Putin declared a “partial mobilization” of 300,000 reservists in September of 2022 due to military struggles in the ongoing war with Ukraine.
The mobilization was highly disliked and resulted in hundreds of thousands of people leaving the country to escape being conscripted.
Families of certain reservists who were called to duty in 2022 have advocated for their discharge and substitution with contract soldiers. The protest on Saturday was arranged by a group called The Way Home, which had previously urged the wives, mothers, sisters, and children of reservists from all over Russia to gather in Moscow to show their solidarity.
One of the demonstrators, who identified herself as Antonina to avoid retaliation, can be seen in a video from independent Russian news source SOTA.vision saying, “We demand the safe return of our husbands.”
Antonina adamantly stated that she does not desire any recompense from the Russian government in the event of her husband’s death. She declared that she would instead choose to either enter a convent or join her husband in death.
She expressed her desire to not live alone and expressed uncertainty about the Russian authorities’ understanding. She tearfully told a SOTA.vision reporter, “God will be their judge.”
The Way Home organized the largest weekly gathering on Saturday, which was estimated by a popular Russian Telegram news channel to have drawn in around 200 participants.
Support for the protest on Friday was expressed by allies of imprisoned Russian critic Alexey Navalny and opposition figure Maksim Kats. However, the Moscow prosecutor’s office issued a warning on Saturday, cautioning against participating in “unauthorized mass events.”
On February 3, 2024, in central Moscow, a group of women protesting the involvement of their husbands in the Russian military campaign in Ukraine were surrounded by police while demanding their return.
OVD-Info, a website that tracks political arrests in Russia, reported that 27 individuals, primarily journalists, were apprehended by the police during the protest. According to SOTA, the majority of them were subsequently released, except for Yaroslav Ryazanov who remained in custody on Saturday night.
In response to public criticism, the Russian military has been actively working to strengthen their presence in Ukraine by recruiting more volunteers since late 2022. The government reported that approximately 500,000 individuals signed contracts with the Defense Ministry last year.
However, Russia’s government-controlled media has refused to listen to the pleas of wives and relatives to bring back mobilized reservists, and certain pro-Kremlin politicians have tried to portray them as puppets of the West. Demonstrators on Saturday vehemently denied these claims.
Maria Andreyeva, who has family members involved in the conflict in Ukraine, expressed to SOTA.vision that she sees it as a devastating tragedy between two closely related nations.
“Almost every Russian has relatives in Ukraine, close and distant, so… this is a situation that has struck us to the core. After the Second World War, it seemed to us that our grandfathers died so that there would never be another (conflict),” Andreyeva said.
The demonstration occurred shortly before the Russian presidential election, which is set to occur from March 15-17 and is likely to result in Putin’s victory. After leaving flowers at the monument, Andreyeva and her companions went to Putin’s campaign headquarters to present their requests to him.
In the previous month, a different candidate for the Russian presidency spoke with Andreyeva and other family members of soldiers who are advocating for their loved ones to come home. Boris Nadezhdin, a former representative in the local government, publicly disagrees with the conflict in Ukraine and condemned the Kremlin’s choice to keep the soldiers enlisted while the fighting persists.
Nadezhdin expressed a desire for fair treatment of individuals fulfilling their responsibilities by the authorities.
Source: voanews.com
