Vladimir Putin formalized, this Friday, December 8, his candidacy for re-election which leaves very little room for doubt. The Russian president is entering these months of campaign in a favorable phase: resistance of the economy to sanctions, breach in international isolation with a trip this week to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. The internal scene is completely locked and no major opponent will appear against him. The only stone in his shoe: the mothers, wives and sisters of those mobilized, some of whom dare to ask for their return. RFI exclusively obtained the testimony of one of them.
From our correspondent in Moscow,
It is a muted, but real, protest in a locked-down Russia. Screams which managed, it is extremely rare, to be heard. We only heard about it last month, but the protest against what some have called ” infinite mobilization » began this spring, says Olga, 25 years old (the first name has been changed, and no other biographical details can be specified for obvious security reasons), a companion of a mobilized soldier whom RFI managed to contact after weeks of approach attempts.
She tells : “ We wrote letters en masse to MPs, we tried every possible interaction with the authorities. Girls organized a focus group with government officials, MPs, and at that time, some were told “If you are constructive, if you help the Ministry of Defense to recruit, only then, perhaps, will your men return.” That was their logic. »
“ When you are touched personally, your eyes open even more »
Officially, none of these women contest Vladimir Putin’s decision to send his soldiers to Ukraine. Not Olga: “ I have always been against », she tells us on a secure messaging application. “ But obviously, when you are touched personally, your eyes open even more; especially when it is no longer the professional soldiers who are fighting, but the civilian population who are called up, when we learn all kinds of shocking details about what is happening there “. Olga tried fourteen months ago to dissuade her companion from answering the call, from fleeing for example to Kazakhstan: “ He didn’t go to fight for the money “, she specifies, but “ because, like everyone else, he was terrified of possible criminal prosecution. They were all afraid of having to leave their jobs, hide somewhere, without knowing how long it would last, if there would be an amnesty at the end or not. How would the courts behave? nothing was clear. In any case, he had already received his summons. »
Mothers, sisters, wives or companions, all their attempts to meet this fall were refused or canceled by the authorities, except in Novosibirsk where the meeting was closed to the press and where nothing filtered of the exchanges which were , it seems, very supervised.
On November 7, some of them still went so far as to appear at an open-air rally of the Communist Party in Moscow with signs. None of the messages contested what those in power always call “ a special operation ”, but simply called for the return of the men. As almost always in Russia, it took barely a few minutes for the police to intervene and stop the movement; without arrest, however. The communist Gennady Zyuganov then promised them help, but also said: “ If the Nazis win, neither you nor I will be alive to discuss this. »
The difference in status
Anger against the mobilization has also been sharpened, since this fall, by the difference in status with the prisoners enlisted in the army: they sign contracts, and at the end of this commitment, they can return to their homes. “ Of course, they are much less likely to stay alivejudge Olga, but now cannibals and rapists are being released. »
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These protests are impossible to quantify, but the government seeks to stifle them by all possible means. With a few meager incentives like permissions, but mainly resorting to coercion: “ Why does this interview have to be anonymous, Olga protests? If everything went well, I could speak to you openly; but each of us is today under immense pressure, with, even for the most active among us, the risk of criminal indictment. Our men are also summoned. Under threat they are ordered to tell their wives to shut up. »
For them, calls from the police are multiplying, summons to the police station for a “ conversation », conspicuous neighborhood surveys. Infiltrated on their Telegram channels, the “trolls” are unleashed. “ Patriots Z (editor’s note: pro-war activists) write that we are all prostitutes, traitors to our country, they openly write that they must hang us, roll over us, that they will find each of us and kill us. As for the liberals, they ask us where we have been until now, what we did when Boris Nemtsov was assassinated (opponent killed in 2015 a few steps from the Kremlin, editor’s note), who we have voted for so far. I don’t remember the last time I managed to sleep well, but it’s been a long time. »
Red balls
If, officially, certain commentators and elected officials declare “ to understand » the movement, others shoot at them with red cannonballs. Star propagandist of state television, Vladimir Soloviev sees it thus: a tool of destruction created by foreign secret services. »
The government has, in any case, until now, closed the door to these demands: the mobilized men will remain until the end of the fighting, the Kremlin and the Ministry of Defense have repeated. Vladimir Putin also, eight days ago, set a target of 15% increase in army personnel. Olga still hopes to be heard by the head of state. The Russian president will address the country next Thursday during a press conference. He will also take the opportunity to respond to calls from citizens who will be duly selected in advance.
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