“Send Back Our Husbands”: Russian Women In Protest

Wives of reservists say their husbands have done their fair share of the fighting and want them back home.

A group of women are publicly criticising the Russian authorities. Their husbands are among the 300,000 reservists mobilised by Russian President Vladimir Putin for the war in Ukraine in autumn 2022.

And they want them home.

“When will our husbands be considered to have discharged their military duty?” asks Maria. “When they’re brought back with no arms and legs? When they can’t do anything at all because they’re just vegetables? Or do we have to wait for them to be sent back in zinc coffins?”

The women met via social media and have formed a group called The Way Home. They have differing views on the war. Some claim to support it. Others are sceptical about the Kremlin’s “special military operation”. What seems to unite them is the belief that the mobilised men have done their fair share of the fighting and should be back home with their families.

It is an opinion the authorities do not share.

In Russia public criticism of anything related to the war comes with a risk. Most of the speakers choose their words very carefully. They know there’s a string of laws in place now in Russia for punishing dissent. Their frustration, though, is palpable.

Antonina one of the protester says.”To begin with we trusted our government,” “But should we trust them now? I don’t trust anyone.”

Members of the group share their stories with a local councillor, Boris Nadezhdin. He has been critical of the “special military operation” from the outset.

Curiously Mr Nadezhdin is one of the few government critics who has been allowed onto national television since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He’s an occasional guest on TV talk shows.

“Putin was very popular in Russia because after the 1990s he brought stability and security,” Mr Nadezhdin said

“Stability and security were the main reason for supporting Putin. Now more and more people have already understood that stability and security are finished.”

Russian women campaigning for the return of their mobilised husbands, sons or brothers have come in for criticism from different quarters. Opponents of the war have little sympathy. They condemn the men for obeying the mobilisation order and for taking part in the war.

Supporters of the Kremlin portray the women as Western stooges.

In a recent interview with the Fontanka news site, Russian MP Andrei Kartapolov, who heads the Russian Duma’s defence committee, claimed that the call for demobilisation was the work of “[Russia’s] enemies”. He appeared to suggest that the Ukrainian military or the CIA was behind it.

BBC