NBC News spoke with a number of women who are part of a growing movement calling for their loved ones to be discharged from the military and allowed to return to civilian life.
In a rare challenge to the Kremlin, a growing number of Russian women are fighting to bring home their husbands, brothers and sons who were drafted to fight in Ukraine.
They say the men have served their time on the front lines, 15 months after some 300,000 reservists were called up to bolster Russia’s struggling campaign. But with little sign of President Vladimir Putin scaling back his ambitions, the military is ignoring their pleas and propagandists have sought to villainize those speaking out.
The women’s mounting frustration has bonded them together, providing common cause in their defiant public stand just months before Putin will extend his rule in an election.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
One of the women’s main issues is with Putin’s mobilization decree, which does not clearly lay out an end date for draftees’ service, leaving the men at the Kremlin’s disposal indefinitely.
At a meeting at a cozy party venue in eastern Moscow last week, which NBC News attended, some of the wives said they wanted the whole country to see that they are “ordinary Russian women” and their stories are real.
Their most outspoken activist, Maria Andreeva, was temporarily held by police officers after standing with a banner in front of a monument close to the Kremlin last weekend, but she told NBC News she was let go shortly after.
Leading Kremlin propagandists like state TV host Vladimir Solovyov have been trying to discredit the women in social media posts labeling them foreign-sponsored saboteurs, linking them to jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, and accusing them of trying to destabilize Russia.
Putin is running for his fifth term in March, and although the result is in little doubt, the Kremlin will be seeking to avoid any high-profile confrontations, especially with a group whose members are far from hardened opposition activists and whose partners are still on the front lines.
Paulina started a separate Telegram channel in which she reveals her face as she documents her efforts to get her husband back, and takes part in protest actions with “The Way Home” activists.
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