According to the recipients' calculations, the Kremlin administration received more than two million questions, which President Vladimir Putin was able to answer at his annual meeting with the media and citizens. These two marathon and major events, which took place in different locations, have merged into a single show this year.
Among the questions addressed to presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov were those from several Moscow media journalists who inquired about the reasons why citizens mobilized for war in the fall of 2022 (in official terminology a special military operation), not the subject of this question, are on rotation and do not have a date to return home. In various parts of Russia, the relatives of these citizens are demanding the return (unplanned by the authorities) of these men, whom they have only seen intermittently since their departure on short vacations marked by fear of returning to the country. Currently, local authorities are harassing these women and mothers, trying to dissuade them from going out or convincing them to return home.
On the eve of the presidential appearance, Russian journalists speculated. Would Putin have the courage to respond to the families of those mobilized? The interrogation could even be read on an electronic screen on Wednesday evening, which served as the background for a commentary on Russian Television's First Channel. Then the text disappeared.
In the long agenda, which also included the egg shortage in Russia and the situation in Argentina, the president avoided talking about the return and not only about it. His assertion that there is “no need today” for mobilization provides no guarantees for tomorrow.
The mobilization imposed in autumn 2022 affected 300,000 people. According to Putin, the Russian contingent in Ukraine currently amounts to 617,000 people, including 486,000 volunteers. He pointed out that this latest number is increasing at a rate of 1,500 per day. The head of state explained that 244,000 people were mobilized “directly in the combat zone”.
Putin's press conference addressed some of the fighters' concerns. The same applies to the problems of veterans of private military organizations (such as the Wagner Group of the late Yevgeny Prigozhin). A citizen named Sóbolev, dressed in a camouflage suit, said that as a member of one of these companies he was repeatedly denied accreditation as a veteran of military operations. Putin emphasized that such organizations officially do not exist. And this is true from the point of view of Russian legislation, which does not mean that they do not exist in reality.
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Putin accused the Defense Ministry of creating a problem because these military companies' “various relationships” with the Russian state were controlled by their “commanders.” “Unfortunately, the payments were made in cash” and “today it is very difficult to even compile a list” of the members of these military units, the president explained. In this way, Putin acknowledged the existence of a contract system reminiscent of construction or harvesting brigades, where foremen are paid for all the work to be performed and distribute the amount among the members of their group. Putin declared that the rights of these contingents must be “recognized” and equated with those of other combatants, and vowed to make efforts to resolve the issue, “perhaps by changing the law.” The powerful head of state, who oversees the entire political structure, said he would make efforts to resolve the problem. He didn't explain why he didn't do it sooner.
discontent
The war, including the end of mobilization and the date of victory, is the topic on which a majority of citizens (21%) would have asked Putin a question, according to a Levada Center poll. The shocking thing about this survey is not this priority, but the following percentage of respondents (10%) who said they didn't want to ask Putin anything and that they wouldn't plug in the TV to watch it. This was followed by those who were interested in social and economic problems, with shares of 8% or less.
The questions that Putin dared not answer or answered evasively allow us to identify two sources of discontent among his most loyal and committed supporters, those who enabled and supported the invasion of Ukraine. It is a dissatisfaction that is not structured in a movement and certainly not in a party, but it does exist. Their nature is very different from the nature of the demands of the opposition (largely in exile), which is manifested in the defense of democratization in Russia. These sectors calling for political change today are focusing much of their energy on passionate debates about how to approach the presidential election next March.
Fighters for freedom and democracy, some of whom are in prison, underground or in exile, are ruthlessly punished by the regime and enjoy the support of the minority in Russia. Instead, the waiting women and the fighting men are part of the majority that supports the regime. It is a majority that questions not the war in Ukraine, but the way in which the loyal and concrete servants of the state, represented by Putin, are treated. Therefore, the discomfort of the latter can have a far greater social impact than that of the former.
On the other hand, the return of the mobilized to their homeland would mean the reintegration into society of hundreds of thousands of men hardened in the war, who demand a dignified position and respect (from an economic and moral point of view) in the system that they defended. Their replacement by other civilians with no war experience could trigger a new wave of protests, like those that occurred during the first mobilization.
The women who wait and the men who fight in Ukraine make up the “great Russian people” whom Putin trusts after his “excess of naivety and gullibility” towards his “supposed partners” in 2000. History teaches us what consequences this had. the discontent and anger of the Russian people at the beginning of the last century.
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