They marked 500 days since Russian President Vladimir Putin in September 2022 ordered a “partial mobilization” of up to 300,000 reservists following battlefield setbacks in Moscow’s full-scale war against Ukraine.
“We want our husbands back alive,” one of the protesters, who only gave her name as Antonina for fear of reprisals, is heard saying in a video published by independent Russian news outlet SOTAvision.
Aware of the public backlash, the Russian military has since late 2022 increasingly sought to bolster the forces in Ukraine by enlisting more volunteers.
Still, the wives’ and relatives’ calls to bring mobilized reservists home have been stonewalled by Russia’s government-controlled media, and some pro-Kremlin politicians have sought to cast them as Western stooges.
The protest came just weeks before the Russian presidential election, scheduled to take place over three days on March 15-17, that Putin is all but assured to win.
Former local legislator Boris Nadezhdin, who openly opposes the war in Ukraine, criticized the Kremlin’s decision to keep them in the ranks as long as the fighting continues.
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