Russians fear for the fate of their child at the front

Since Russia launched a bloody “military operation” in Ukraine, Oksana and Olga’s phones have been red hot. Hundreds of calls from Russian parents looking for their child wandering somewhere on the Ukrainian front. On this crisp, clear winter morning alone, Oksana answered sixty-four. “I haven’t even spoken to everyone yet. Parents think we know where their child is, but we don’t know either.”

Olga and Oksana (their surnames are known to the editors) work at the Soldiers’ Mothers of Saint Petersburg. For thirty years, the small but well-known organization in Russia has been campaigning for the rights of soldiers in the Russian army and their relatives. Since the war has raged in Ukraine, the organization has been doing what the Russian government fails to do: help families find out the fate of their child, father or brother.

The scant messages that parents receive from their sons at the front are “horrible,” says Olga, a young-looking fifty, in a flower-walled apartment somewhere in St. Petersburg. Her colleague Oksana is elsewhere and joins by video chat. Broad dark brown bangs and vibrant brown eyes fill the small screen. At a fast pace and sometimes visibly emotional, the women tell what they hear from the parents. Stories about inexperienced and sometimes very young conscripts, who were sometimes literally chased across the Ukrainian border by their superiors.

scolded

“Boys are abused and intimidated. They are told that they are not soldiers, but mercenaries, and therefore criminals. That the Russian army has withdrawn its hands from them. This way they are forced across the border,” says Olga. Few soldiers can withstand the pressure. Like the twenty-year-old boy who, somewhere along the border between Ukraine and Belarus, called his mother in panic. Then he slit his wrists, and it’s been quiet ever since. Another mother received word that her son had been captured near the Ukrainian city of Kharkov. Many soldiers say they were sent to the front against their will, ignorant of their destination and often without signing an army contract. No one is allowed to talk, cell phones are confiscated.

Although Moscow states that only professional soldiers and no inexperienced conscripts fight in Ukraine, Oksana hears different stories. „A mother from Perm [een stad in de Oeral, red.] called with the story that her son had been sent across the border in a military vehicle with two other boys. They had fought at Kharkov and then lost their way. Imagine: three boys without superiors, without instructions, without a clue. Lost between heaven and earth.” The Russian army said this week that 498 Russian soldiers have been killed since the start of the war. But according to western and Ukrainian military sources that number may be as high as 5,000.

‘two hundred’

Parents who have recognized their son also report to the Soldiers’ Mothers on the website www.200rf.com, which the Ukrainian Ministry of the Interior launched last week. Ukraine then collects images of dead, wounded and prisoners of war Russian soldiers and their documents. The title refers to the term ‘cargo 200’, the military identifier for the Russian dead who return from the battlefield in zinc coffins. The chilling term has been engrained in the collective memory since the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Thousands of Soviet soldiers returned from the front in those years as ‘two hundred’. This week invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to pick up Russian parents from their children. “I have a daughter the same age. It’s terrible. I can’t imagine these guys being my kids.”

In addition to lack of experience and well-functioning equipment, military analysts cite a lack of will to fight as one of the reasons why Russia’s advance into Ukraine has been slow. Numerous videos on social media show enraged Ukrainian civilians berating Russian soldiers, peasants dragging their tanks and crying prisoners of war are cared for with food and drink. The latter is no superfluous help, says Olga. “We hear from parents about a lack of decent clothing in the military, as well as food and even drinking water.”

Financial compensation

Boosting the morale of soldiers and their families seemed precisely the intent of Putin’s intercalated TV speech to the Russian Security Council on Thursday. “I want to emphasize once again that our soldiers and officers in Ukraine are fighting for Russia, for peace, for the citizens of the Donbas, for the denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine. To prevent the anti-Russian bloc that the West has been building on our borders for years from threatening Russia,” Putin said menacingly. In addition, he promised families of the dead financial compensation of several tens of thousands of euros per death.

The president stressed that the Russian military campaign is proceeding according to plan. Western specialists have their doubts about this. The Russian advance is seriously slowed down by supply problems and shortages of goods and fuel. In addition, the Russians encountered fierce resistance from the Ukrainian army.

Also, more and more horror stories are seeping through the wall of propaganda and censorship that Russia has erected. Olga and Oksana try to protect families from the worst stories. Like the one about the mobile crematoria that the Russian army would deploy. Although independent fact-checkers have not yet been able to substantiate the reports with facts, they are causing panic among parents.

Oksana heard another horror story from her sister, a nurse in the town of Mozyr in southern Belarus. “She said the city’s morgues are full of the bodies of Chechen soldiers.” That was confirmed by various media this week.

Falsifying cause of death

Olga fears that many fallen soldiers will remain behind in Ukraine until identification of the bodies is no longer technically possible. Until a soldier’s death has been officially confirmed, it is easy to fake the cause of death. “They write that a soldier has died on the territory of the Russian Federation. For example, by a Ukrainian grenade. In this way you justify the Russian struggle and you prevent a revolt by angry parents.”

Although the Soldiers’ Mothers have been active since the Chechen wars in the 1990s, it is becoming increasingly difficult to harness that experience. In 2014, the start of the Ukraine crisis, the organization was declared a ‘foreign agent’ by the Kremlin. Since the secret service FSB tightened the rules for collecting military information last September, their work has become virtually impossible. This is because of a ban on the dissemination of information about the moral state of the army. Olga: “We are officially no longer allowed to ask soldiers for their name, army unit or other details. All we can do is note that something happened to someone somewhere. But how can we refuse help to desperate people?”

Also read: Russians without ties to Putin are also banned

At the moment, that help mainly consists of practical tips and contact with Ukrainian sources. Olga lies in bed at night staring at the messages on her cell phone. In the morning she calls acquaintances in Ukraine to find out where the fighting took place that night. During the day she connects Russian relatives and encourages them to demand the information they are entitled to from the Ministry of Defense. But the most important advice to parents is: go and look for yourself. “We advise them to travel to the place where their child last made contact,” Oksana says, with audible frustration. Because it turns out not to be easy to get the parents paralyzed by fear and despair into action. “They are eager to believe the Russian government, which assures them that everything will be fine. Anything better than the death of your child.”

A version of this article also appeared in NRC Handelsblad on 5 March 2022

A version of this article also appeared in NRC in the morning of March 5, 2022