The Telegraph
Russian wives beg Putin to stop sending husbands into ‘meat grinder’
George Styllis – March 12, 2023
A group of Russian women have appealed to Vladimir Putin to stop sending their husbands and children to the front line like ‘meat’ without adequate training.
In a video shared online, the women say the mobilisation of new recruits to the army has been a betrayal after the Russian President said they would not be sent to the front line immediately.
The women say their sons, husbands and brothers have been “thrown like meat” to storm fortified areas in Ukraine. In the video shared by the independent Telegram news channel SOTA, they can be seen standing in a group holding a sign in Russian that reads, “580 Separate Howitzer Artillery Division”, dated March 11, 2023.
“My husband… is located on the line of contact with the enemy,” one woman says.
“Our mobilised [men] are being sent like lambs to the slaughter to storm fortified areas – five at a time, against 100 heavily armed enemy men,” she continued.
Putin ordered the mobilization of more than 300,000 men in September – the first since 1941 – to the shock of many ordinary Russians. Of those who were drafted, many have perished.
Among the reasons for the high casualties have been poor training and a lack of equipment. New recruits have reported being sent to battle with old weapons and unsuitable clothing.
A team of independent Russian journalists called the No Future project says authorities have attempted to cover up the deaths of dozens of mobilised Russians from Volgograd who were sent to fight without any ammunition. The group says new recruits are also deprived of first-aid kits and hot food, while during one training session the men just “played on their phones” for two weeks.
“They are prepared to serve their homeland but according to the specialisation they’ve trained for, not as stormtroopers. We ask that you pull back our guys from the line of contact and provide the artillerymen with artillery and ammunition,” said the woman.
The group’s criticism of the Kremlin comes amid growing anger among Russian wives and mothers over the war.
In a rare acknowledgment of the government’s failings, Putin last year told a group of angry mothers that he felt “their pain” during a choreographed sit-down in which he at times appeared emotional.
He has also said “mistakes” were made in the call-up to reinforcements. Despite that, the Kremlin has hinted at a second mobilisation.
MPs have proposed a law that will give Russia’s National Guard more power to enforce military draft orders and another that will allow property to be confiscated from Russians who flee abroad.