{"id":26525,"date":"2022-03-05T03:39:07","date_gmt":"2022-03-05T08:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=26525"},"modified":"2022-03-15T12:18:54","modified_gmt":"2022-03-15T16:18:54","slug":"ukraine-war-families-of-unhappy-russian-conscripts-could-undermine-kremlins-war-effort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=26525","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine war: families of unhappy Russian conscripts could undermine Kremlin’s war effort"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION<\/p>\n

An article by Jennifer Mathers from The Conversation<\/a> (republished under a Creative Commons license)<\/p>\n

What do ordinary Russians think about the war that Vladimir Putin has unleashed on Ukraine? The Kremlin\u2019s justifications: that Ukraine\u2019s leadership has been subjecting ethnic Russians in that country\u00a0to genocide <\/a>\u00a0and that the government in Kyiv is\u00a0led by neo-Nazis\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0appear far-fetched to most people outside Russia. So does the idea that Russia had to strike first to\u00a0prevent Ukraine\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0from becoming a springboard for a Nato attack on Russia. But that\u2019s what the Russian people have been told.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nDistraught: Russian soldiers\u2019 mothers with pictures of their sons killed in Chechnya, 1995.\u00a0EPA\/Sergei Chirikov<\/center><\/p>\n

Some Russians certainly haven\u2019t accepted these notions and oppose the invasion. Several thousand people\u00a0have been arrested\u00a0in cities <\/a>\u00a0across the country for participating in protests. And a growing number of\u00a0respected figures in Russia\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0have made public statements against the war in Ukraine, including\u00a0celebrities\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0who are using their social media accounts to express their political views.<\/p>\n

But while social media is providing young people with alternative explanations for this war, it is the older generations who represent the bedrock of Putin\u2019s popular base of support. And older people tend to get their news from\u00a0state-controlled television <\/a>\u00a0\u00a0rather than from social media or by seeking out Russia\u2019s remaining independent news media that exist mainly online.<\/p>\n

This support for Putin and his war is now at risk, however, as a direct result of the way that Russia treats its own soldiers and their families.<\/p>\n

Within a few days of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, the Russian independent news organisation Meduza published an article\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0highlighting the shock and anger of the families of Russian conscripts when they discovered that their sons had been sent into battle. Russian law prohibits the use of conscripts in combat, so these parents had no reason to believe that their loved ones were in the front lines of Putin\u2019s \u201cspecial military operation\u201d in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

According to the families that Meduza interviewed, conscripts are being coerced into signing contracts of voluntary service to change their status and provide some legal cover for sending them to war.<\/p>\n

Changes to the status of conscripts is not the only information that Russia is keeping from soldiers\u2019 families. According to a presidential decree that \u00a0Putin signed in 2015<\/a>, all military deaths are a state secret. This means that frantic families who contact the Ministry of Defence asking for information about the welfare of their sons are routinely met either with silence or delaying tactics, such as advice to contact a unit commander directly or write to the Red Cross.<\/p>\n

(Continued in right column)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Questions related to this article:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n 
\n Can the peace movement help stop the war in the Ukraine?<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

(Continued from left column)<\/p>\n

Ukraine has seemingly taken a very different approach. According to news reports, when Russian soldiers are captured they are allowed to\u00a0phone their families <\/a>, both to assure those back home that they are alive but also to convey to them the reality of this war.<\/p>\n

If there is one thing that can effectively counter the Kremlin\u2019s narrative about its use of force in Ukraine, it is\u00a0personal knowledge\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0from trusted sources of information \u2013 such as the testimony of combatants delivered to their parents. And these parents will share this knowledge with their extended family, with neighbours, with co-workers, and with friends.<\/p>\n

Committee of Soldiers\u2019 Mothers<\/strong><\/p>\n

In fact,\u00a0the news is already spreading <\/a>, and families with sons in the army who have not heard from them directly are pleading with the only other source of information and advocacy in Russia about members of the armed forces:\u00a0the Committee of Soldiers\u2019 Mothers <\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Committee of Soldiers\u2019 Mothers began during the Soviet war in Afghanistan as a network of locally based initiatives led by the families \u2013 principally the mothers \u2013 of soldiers to lobby the Kremlin for their safe return. The committee rapidly grew in size and moral authority and\u00a0expanded its remit\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0to put pressure on Moscow to put an end to the practice of\u00a0dedovshchina. This is \u201chazing\u201d \u2013 routine physical abuse meted out by senior conscripts to new arrivals in the unit that sometimes ended in serious injury or even death.<\/p>\n

The organisation came to prominence during Russia\u2019s first war in Chechnya (1994-1996), when it organised the\u00a0Mothers\u2019 March for Life and Compassion <\/a>. This involved hundreds of middle aged women travelling to the war zone to find their sons and bring them back home.<\/p>\n

Outrage at the mistreatment of conscripts spread throughout Russia at the grassroots level and undermined the entire basis of staffing the armed forces. Advised by the Committee of Soldiers\u2019 Mothers on\u00a0legal ways to avoid military service\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0and supported by their families, young men of conscription age withdrew their labour from the state, sparking a\u00a0crisis of recruitment\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0and retention that the Russian armed forces have only recently begun to recover from.<\/p>\n

Failure of reform<\/strong><\/p>\n

The war in Ukraine is Russia\u2019s first large-scale use of force since the start of a serious effort at \u00a0military reform\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0following Russia\u2019s 2008 war in Georgia. Previous military operations either involved small numbers of highly trained forces (the\u00a0annexation of Crimea in 2014 <\/a>, the\u00a0military intervention in Syria <\/a>\u00a0\u00a0since 2015) or covert support for proxies (the\u00a0war in the Donbas <\/a>, 2014-2022).<\/p>\n

Despite\u00a0a decade of reform\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0and a \u00a0significant increase in resources <\/a>, what we have seen so far suggests that the attitudes in the Ministry of Defence towards the treatment of soldiers and their families have not changed much since the late Soviet period.<\/p>\n

This could turn out to be a costly oversight. Putin\u2019s tenure in the Kremlin is not necessarily dependent upon public opinion. But significant shifts in the mood of ordinary Russians will certainly undermine morale. This could cause some of the powerful figures that surround the president to question the wisdom of continuing down the current path, and perhaps also with the current leader.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n