It’s Valentine’s Day in Russia as elsewhere. After a year of conflict in Ukraine, dating has taken on new meaning and Russian soldiers have seen their popularity skyrocket.
From our correspondent in Moscow,
” Prince Charming on a Tank », is how the very legitimist daily Komsomolskaya Pravda headlined last week a long article devoted to romantic encounters during what the Kremlin persists in calling « the special operation in Ukraine “. Photo of a couple in support, he in ceremonial uniform, she in a white dress with a bouquet of flowers, the newspaper evokes in particular new types of online meetings.
Farewell Tinder, welcome groups on V Kontakt, the Russian Facebook, like the very clearly titled “ Meet soldiers “.
Looking for a brave man
For the heart of a career soldier or a conscript, competition between women, more numerous in this group, would rage. They would all be looking for a brave man who knows the value of life », as explained by a young witness interviewed in the article.
Warning against possible crooks except – some women are thus sometimes suspected of being less in search of love than of the generous financial compensation given by the State to widows – Komsomlskaya Pravda relays stories all with a candy pink outlet, including that of love at first sight and mad love between a veteran who lost his leg and a young woman in search of a pillar in her life.
Without the psychological trauma of returning from combat, he would be able to take on all the day-to-day tasks when she, finally, “ may be concerned about home comforts “. Because this man, whose photo is shown to us of a very muscular back a few seconds from throwing himself into the basin of a swimming pool, married a woman already in charge of a child.
Celebrate the traditional family
Here, we are doing a kind of triple whammy: we are motivating the army by telling them about the hearts of the women in the rear who beat for them, we are mobilizing society behind their soldiers and, more importantly, we are celebrating the traditional family in what is increasingly presented as an ideological war against a West with decadent morals.
This is at the heart of the policy of Vladimir Putin who, for the past year, has pressed the accelerator of an ultra-conservative policy, in particular by voting laws called ” LGBT anti-propaganda ».
According to EMISS, the official statistics institute, 70% of marriages ended in divorce in 2021 in Russia. Thirty years ago, this rate was 42%.
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