- Russian soldiers and their wives are becoming increasingly unhappy with long deployments without rotation.
- The Kremlin is trying to prevent wives from protesting by speeding up salary payments.
- Wives and mothers of mobilized soldiers have proved influential in shaping public opinion in past conflicts.
The Kremlin is concerned that the disgruntled wives of conscripted soldiers unhappy with long deployments could become a significant political headache, reports say.
To prevent the women’s discontent from bubbling over, regional officials have been instructed to give soldiers’ salary payments to their wives as quickly as possible, two told Russian opposition outlet Verstka.
The Kremlin believes that most wives are more concerned about the paycheck than their husbands returning from war, the outlet reported.
The report comes after the wives of deployed soldiers held a rare public protest in Moscow on November 7.
The women gathered in the city’s Teatralnya Square with banners demanding that their husbands be rotated away from the front line, the UK Ministry of Defense said, but police broke it up “within minutes.”
“The apparently indefinitely extended combat deployments of personnel without rotation is increasingly seen as unsustainable by both the troops themselves and by their relatives,” the UK department said.
Officials were also instructed to prevent protests from spreading at a three-day conference near Moscow, The Times of London reported, citing reporting by Russian outlet The Insider.
They were told: “Persuade, promise, pay. Anything, as long as it doesn’t go out onto the street, in any quantity, even 50 people.”
Recent requests by soldiers’ wives to hold protests in Moscow and St Petersburg have been denied.
The Kremlin appears to be increasingly concerned with public discontent, especially with the Russian presidential elections in March 2024.
They are “inexplicably concerned,” think tank The Institute for the Study of War said in a recent update, considering “apparent widespread Russian approval” of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Levada Center, an independent Russian polling organization, said that 82% of Russians approve of Putin as of October 2023.
Some analysts note that the accuracy of these polls are unclear, as many fear expressing opposition to Putin.
But Putin faces no serious threats at the ballot box because of long-term crackdowns on the opposition and the prevalence of state-controlled media.
However, in previous Russian conflicts in Afghanistan and Chechnya, wives and mothers of mobilized soldiers have proved influential in shaping public opinion, and analysts believe Putin fears they could become the kernel of an anti-war movement.
“In a country without an independent media or other effective systems of government oversight, and that has repressive state policies toward all kinds of civil society activism, mothers and wives are really the only legitimate critics of the military,” wrote openDemocracy, an independent international media platform.
The war in Ukraine has put Putin under pressure, with international sanctions hitting the economy, and the partial mobilization of more than 300,000 reservists sparking protests in September last year.
The Russian Central Election Commission chairperson, Ella Pamfilova, made claims this week about Russians who have left the country trying to discredit the upcoming elections.
The ISW noted that her statements suggest “the Russian government will continue to intensify censorship efforts under the guise of fighting attempted internal election meddling ahead of the presidential elections.”
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