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Discontent Grows Among Wives of Russian Soldiers 'I Want My Husband To Come Home. He's Had Enough!" [1]
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Date: 2023-12-30
Christina Hebel in Cherkessk and Moscow, Russia By
14.12.2023, 15.25 Uhr
As usual for Der Spiegel a lengthy article. I will try to highlight the main theme of it.
The majority of Russians accept the war against Ukraine without complaint. But now, some of the wives of conscripted men are starting to go public with their frustration. They could become a problem for Putin. Mariya Andreyeva says she has to keep her hands moving. Knitting, gluing, painting. The main thing is to just keep busy. Otherwise her thoughts start to spin. How is her husband doing out there in the cold in Ukraine? When will she see him again? Will he see his daughter grow up? She’s only two. In the autumn of 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the country's mobilization and called up at least 300,000 army reservists, including Andreyeva’s husband. He has been deployed in Ukraine for over a year now as a paramedic somewhere near the front. Andreyeva believes her husband has by now done his fair share when it comes to patching up wounded soldiers and examining dead bodies. It is now, she says, time for others to take their turn. "I want my husband to come home,” she says. "He’s exhausted. He’s had enough.” The petite, dark-haired 34-year-old is a pediatrician and works part-time as a researcher at a hospital. It’s her belief that Ukraine belongs to Russia and not to the West. And yet she doesn’t lower her voice when she says: "Putin stole my husband from me and my family. He has betrayed us all.” These are courageous words in Russia, where severe punishment awaits those seen as criticizing the war effort or sharing false information.
Andreyeva isn’t the only one demanding her husband's return. Thousands of desperate wives, mothers and sisters are currently taking their anger to the internet. And their numbers are growing. The Telegram channel "The Way Home,” where they exchange information, now has more than 33,000 members, 10 times as many as a month and a half ago.
Members increasing by 10 fold in a month seems like a good sign to me but the Orcs don’t seem to mind making demonstrators disappear.
The women post video clips on social media in which they hold up notes in front of the camera saying "Bring home the conscripts!” or "We demand demobilization.” Then there's Dariya from the Chelyabinsk region, who asks on Telegram: "Are we really going to permit this injustice?” She shares an article about how recruits in penal colonies were pardoned after six months of combat duty and returned home – unlike their conscripted men.
Why do different rules apply to criminals than to innocent people, the women wonder? Angelika from the city of Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia writes: "Our men have enough of a burden to carry on their shoulders, they can't carry them for everyone.” Those called up so far comprise just over 1 percent of the army’s more than 25 million reservists. The women want to know why more reservists aren’t now being sent to the front.
Criminals return after 6 months but conscripted remain? I would cry foul too.
They're signing petitions and contacting members of parliament, governors and the authorities. And also the Kremlin directly. The anger has built up to such a degree that the soldiers’ wives are sending countless messages each day to the hotlines for Vladimir Putin's annual TV show "Direct Line,” which has been scheduled for December 14. The president usually uses the show to address the Russian people directly once a year. Russia’s attack on Ukraine has now been going on for more than 21 months, and Putin has left little doubt that he intends to continue to wage war against the neighboring country. The planned military budget for next year is higher than at any time since the Soviet era, and the arms industry is producing weapons at a breakneck pace. The president appears to be satisfied; Russia has regained its "sovereignty as a world power,” he recently enthused. He sees himself strengthened: The Ukrainian counteroffensive has largely failed, and the West is struggling to provide further arms and aid for Kyiv. But now the angry women could become a problem for Putin that he cannot ignore. He intends to hold presidential elections on March 17, 2024. And even if his confirmation in office is considered a mere formality: He doesn’t have any use for unrest in the country.
I really do hope it becomes a major problem for Putler and his cronies.
A few weeks ago, on the anniversary of the October Revolution, Andreyeva and around 30 other women hijacked a communist rally on Red Square. They held up a sign reading: "Justice for the draftees. It’s time to go home!” The images quickly spread on Telegram, and the women demanded the immediate withdrawal of drafted civilians in a manifesto on the channel "The Way Home.” Andreyeva applied for permission to hold a rally in Moscow, and women across the country did the same. The authorities didn’t issue any permits, often citing the coronavirus pandemic as a reason. Andreyeva lets out a bitter-sounding laugh. "The communists are allowed to demonstrate, but not us?”
Then she suddenly jumps up from the sofa and points to her white sweater. "Shoigu! Fulfill the priority tasks,” is emblazoned on it in black letters. In December 2022, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu had announced "priority tasks” for the military this year in the presence of Putin. One of his points was to increase the number of contract soldiers to 521,000 and to replace civilians who had been drafted. That promise, though, has gone unfulfilled. Instead, Putin made an appearance with carefully selected, loyal military wives from the United Russia party and the authorities. And on the anniversary of the mobilization last September, Andrei Kartapolov, chairman of the Defense Committee in the Duma, Russia's largely symbolic parliament, said that "no rotation is planned” for the draftees. "They will return home when the special operation is over.” For many women, it was the last straw. "The audacity,” says Andreyeva. "It's slavery.” "The men need to finally get out of this hell.” She says her husband, a trained nurse and masseur, is on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week. He only gets two or three hours of sleep a night. Operations are carried out in temporary accommodations, in old metal grain silos or even in spots dug into the ground and covered with tarps.
Unlike Andreyeva, Yevgeniya doesn’t want to provide her surname or exact place of residence. The 33-year-old lives in the Volgograd region of southern Russia and, like most desperate women, is afraid that her husband could be sent to the front line for punishment by his commanders because of her complaints. She says his superiors told her husband: "You’re not human, you’re meat.” The draftees are at the very bottom of the army hierarchy, she says, adding that they even have to buy their own food. "He is physically and emotionally depleted, completely defenseless and without hope.” Yevgeniya breathes heavily into the phone. She struggles to hold back tears as she says that the conscripts are even happy when they receive serious injuries. "They lie in the hospital with their feet and legs blown off and are happy because they don’t have to go back to war.”
That should relay the gist. These are not happy women and their numbers appear to be growing. We can hope.
[END]
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