By AFP and Kontur | 2024-01-09

KYIV/MOSCOW -- Wives of Russians drafted to fight in Ukraine symbolically laid flowers January 6 at the flame of the unknown soldier right beneath the walls of the Kremlin and demanded the return of their husbands from the front.

Anger has been growing for months among relatives of reservists whom President Vladimir Putin drafted in September 2022, seven months after the initial invasion of Ukraine.

The "mobilization," better termed a draft given its coercive and sweeping nature, is a sensitive subject for authorities, who have so far refrained from repressing what has become a nascent movement of revolt.

January 6 saw some 15 women brave the winter cold to place red flowers at the site in the heart of the capital.

"We want to draw the authorities' attention and that of the public to our appeal. We have tried several means. We made a written appeal to lawmakers, officials, administrations -- but we were not heard," Maria, a 47-year-old sales manager, whose husband was drafted in November 2022, told AFP.

"It's not fair. They are civilians; they are not soldiers. Our husbands can't stay there," she added.

Maria Semyonova, a legal assistant, urged authorities to "negotiate peace" in Ukraine at a protest where police did not intervene.

Usually, protests against the conflict are swiftly and resolutely nipped in the bud with the subject a delicate issue for the Kremlin.

The protest is "the only peaceful action that has not yet been banned by law," said Paulina, the mother of a one-year-old child.

"I feel like we're annoying them. But no one will remain silent. We shall carry on every day, every Saturday. We'll lay flowers" to draw attention to the situation, she said.

"At some point, it will be impossible to ignore us," added Paulina, saying she was determined to get back her husband.

Russian state media have to date largely ignored the women's protest, with the Kremlin keen to project an image of national unity ahead of presidential elections later this year where Putin expects to secure another term.

According to Putin, 244,000 Russians have been drafted to fight in Ukraine in a total force 617,000 strong.

The Way Home

The protests are the latest sign of discontent from Russians with loved ones fighting in Ukraine.

Women whose husbands and sons are fighting in Ukraine have been banding together across Russia, creating a movement called Put Domoi (The Way Home).

"No woman who has a child does so for him to be shot 20 years later and to rot away in a field," Maria Andreyeva, the wife of a drafted soldier, said in an interview with BELSAT posted on YouTube December 1.

The women of The Way Home are demanding that their husbands be discharged from the army because they have been fighting for a long time without rotation and with no opportunity to return home.

In exchange for the return of their husbands, the women are offering up men who want to enter the army voluntarily, according to Andreyeva.

Kontur was able to communicate with a member of The Way Home's Telegram group, a woman named Yevgeniya who declined to share her last name or where she lives.

She said her husband went to the front a year and a half ago, after a notice arrived telling him to report for data reconciliation. Two weeks later, the army sent him to boot camp; a month later, to the front.

Initially the military promised to assign him to territorial defense and in no way order him into combat, Yevgeniya said. But during his entire service, he has gone home on leave only once.

Although he did not want to return to the front, "he couldn't do anything else," Yevgeniya said.

When asked why her husband is fighting in the war, Yevgeniya answered tersely: "To not be thrown in jail."

Now Yevgeniya is trying to get through to the authorities to demand her husband's discharge.

When asked if her husband was willing to desert, she said: "He'll never do something like that. He won't be able to abandon his comrades. And how will he be able to look his sons in the eye later?"

Missile strikes

The latest protests come as Russia continues to launch missile strikes against Ukraine.

At least three people have been killed and dozens injured in a fresh wave of Russian strikes, regional officials said January 8.

"The enemy launched dozens of missiles at peaceful cities and villages of Ukraine," Oleksiy Kuleba, deputy chief of the Ukrainian presidential office, said, adding that 33 were injured.

Russian missiles hit a shopping centre and high-rise buildings in President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's hometown of Kryvyi Rih, killing one person, Kuleba said.

"In Kryvyi Rih, there are many breakages in power grids, there are power outages, and electric transport does not work," he said.

One person was also killed by separate "explosions" in the western province of Khmelnytsky, he added, far from the frontlines in the east.

In the eastern province of Kharkiv, an elderly woman who was pulled from the rubble of her house in the city of Zmiiv also died, regional governor Oleg Synegubov said.