On November 7, wives of Russian soldiers initiated a public street protest in Moscow, as reported by the U.K. Ministry of Defence.
The Ministry posted on the short messaging service X: “On November 7, 2023, wives of deployed Russian soldiers conducted what is likely the first public street protest in Moscow since the invasion of Ukraine. The demonstrators gathered at the central Teatralnya Square, unfurling banners demanding the withdrawal of their partners from the frontline. Since February 2022, there have been daily examples on social media of Russian wives and mothers protesting online against the service conditions of their loved ones. However, draconian Russian legislation has so far prevented these relatives of soldiers from forming an influential lobby, as the soldiers’ mothers did during the Afghan-Soviet war in the 1980s. The police dispersed the protest at Teatralnya Square within minutes. The immediate demand of the demonstrators is noteworthy. The seemingly indefinitely extended combat deployments of personnel without rotation are increasingly seen as untenable both by the soldiers themselves and their relatives.”
Image: Kremlin.ru, Vladimir Putin (2022-12-16), CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (Image size changed)
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