The angry wives of Russian soldiers are becoming a thorn in Putin’s side
- As more Russians are sent to Ukraine, wives and mothers have become a powerful force of dissent, arguing that their loved ones deserve to return home
- Federal Security Service (FSB) agents have threatened to send soldiers to the front lines if their wives do not back down, The Washington Post reported
As Vladimir Putin wages war against Ukraine, he faces a growing threat from within his borders: the angry relatives of Russian soldiers.
Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and the war has only intensified in the months since. And as more Russians are sent to fight, their wives and mothers have become an increasingly powerful force of dissent, arguing that their loved ones are ill-used or deserve to return home after nearly two years of war.
It is not the first time that Russian soldiers’ relatives have protested and risked angering the government’s powerful security establishment.
During the Soviet Union, the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers played a pivotal role in publicising dedovshchina, the practice of hazing and abusing younger, newer servicemen.
The CSM “emerged as a mass movement” while Mikhail Gorbachev was president, “aimed at exposing and eradicating the violence endemic in Soviet military barracks,” one scholar wrote in The Journal of Power Institutions in Post-Soviet Societies.
The wives and mothers of Russian soldiers today appear to be taking a page out of a similar playbook.
