A precise appointment, on the eve of Mother’s Day in the country. Vladimir Putin met on Friday with mothers and wives of Russian soldiers for the first time since the start of the conflict with Ukraine, while several of them publicly questioned the head of state about the fate of their children in recent weeks.
If Vladimir Putin assured, under the gaze of the cameras, “sharing the pain” of these mothers, it turns out that these women were selected because of their closeness to the Russian leader.
The president of a pro-Kremlin association.
One of them, blonde with short hair (see below), is not at her first meeting with the Russian president. Indeed, Nadezhda Uzunova was already present, a few meters from Vladimir Putin, during the celebrations that took place after the annexation by Russia of four Ukrainian territories at the end of September.
He had even spoken in Red Square in a speech with very patriotic accents.
“Our soldiers must protect us and we mothers must stand together in the rear to promote victory. We must be strong, but wise, because we are the ones who educate our heroes, the defenders of the homeland, ”he told the crowd.
President of the Brotherhood of Fighters association, heads a pro-war association financed by the Kremlin.
Women of Putin’s party
Among the other mothers of Russian soldiers that Vladimir Putin met on Saturday, there are more political profiles, including elected officials of the Russian leader’s regime. Among them, Olga Beltseva, an elected official from Moscow, a member of the same party as the head of state, “United Russia”.
The same for Yulia Belekhova. Politician, she was a candidate for the Duma with Vladimir Putin’s party a few years ago.
The woman sitting to the right of the Russian president during their meeting is also known to be close to Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, himself close to Vladimir Putin.
Among the women invited, one of them raised the portrait of her son killed in combat, in a moving scene. Except that the man in question died in 2019, well before the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine last February.
Uninvited disgruntled mothers
The women of the “Russian Soldiers’ Mothers Committee”, on the other hand, obviously did not receive an invitation to meet Vladimir Putin.
“Why didn’t they invite all the women who made videos to complain? There are at least fifty of them, bring them to Moscow!” irritates the president of this NGO, the most independent in Russia, Valentina Mednikova.
“They preferred to make their own selection,” he says.
In recent weeks, criticism of mothers of Russian soldiers against Vladimir Putin has emerged on social networks. They ask to listen to their sons who have gone to the front, they deplore the lack of preparation and equipment of the troops before sending them into battle.
Source: BFM TV
