Russian President Vladimir Putin met with the mothers of soldiers fighting in Ukraine on Friday, assuring them that he shared their suffering but had no regrets about launching what he called a “special military operation”, The Guardian reported. However, some mothers and wives of mobilized Russian soldiers accuse the Kremlin leader of not daring to meet with them and meeting with those who do not ask questions, reports AFP.

Russian state media released footage of Putin’s meeting with the mothers of Russian soldiers.

The head of the Kremlin urged women not to believe everything they see on TV or read on the Internet, as there is a lot of “false” information about the conflict circulating there.

The video shows Putin sitting at a table with tea, cookies and plates of fresh berries and telling soldiers’ mothers that he and the Russian leadership understand the suffering of those who lost their boys at the front in Ukraine.

“I want you to know that I personally and the entire leadership of the country – we share your pain. We understand that nothing can replace the loss of a son – especially for a mother. We share this pain,” Putin said.

Putin also said he had no regrets about launching what he called Russia’s “special military operation” against Ukraine, portraying the war as a turning point in which Moscow finally stood up to Western hegemony.

State television has not yet shown what the soldiers’ mothers told Vladimir Putin.

Soldier mothers vent their pain online

Mothers and spouses of Russian soldiers mobilized to fight in Ukraine have been gathering across Russia for several weeks and demanding in video appeals broadcast on Russian-language Internet channels that President Vladimir Putin keep his promises, reports France Presse, citing Agerpres.

After ordering partial mobilization in September, the Kremlin assured that hundreds of thousands of conscripts would undergo serious training, receive good equipment and not be sent to the front line of the war in Ukraine.

But numerous violations of these promises were registered: deaths at the front of newly mobilized men, mobilization of men unfit for military service, parents with many children or too old, lack of proper equipment and military training of conscripts. .

Due to fears of protests, Putin met for the first time on Friday with the mothers of soldiers sent to Ukraine, but relatives of the mobilized predicted that the meeting was carefully prepared, without substantive discussions.

Women accuse Putin of choosing mothers who don’t ask questions

Putin will meet “from the arms of mothers, who, like every time, will ask appropriate questions and thank you”, expressed regret Olga Tsukanova, the mother of a boy who is doing military service.

“Volodymyr Volodymyrovych, answer our questions!” – asked this woman, who wants to make sure that her 20-year-old son will not be sent illegally to the front or to the border with Ukraine, where shells are also falling.

She specially came to Moscow from the city of Samara, located 900 km to the east, with the hope that she would be accepted in the Kremlin. In vain. “I think they are afraid that they will be asked uncomfortable questions. But he has to solve the problem!”, she declares.

The Russian president knows how sensitive the topic of soldiers’ relatives is.

Their status as mothers and wives of mobilized men who have gone to serve the country gives them legitimacy and some protection from persecution, since the authorities cannot see them as ordinary opponents.

Explanation of sociologists

In Russian society, “there is an instinctive feeling that wives have the right” to hold the authorities accountable, says Oleksiy Levinson, a sociologist at the independent Levada Center.

These women are “asking the state to fulfill its function as a ‘collective father’ of the mobilized,” he adds. “When the state or the military command does not fulfill its duties, women complain,” says the quoted expert.

At the moment, the movement is fragmented and poorly coordinated. The calls of grieving relatives are broadcast on social networks, where unofficial teams gather around more prominent personalities.

This also applies to Olga Tsukanova, who, in a video released by some Russian social networks, addresses Putin: “Vladimir Volodymyrovych, are you a man or something? Do you have the courage to look us in the eye? Not with custom-made wives and mothers, but with real women who came from different cities all the way here to meet you.”