SOCHI, Russia – On February 23, Razil Malikov, a tank driver in the Russian army, called his family and said he would return home soon; The military exercises of his unit in Crimea were just coming to an end.
The next morning, Russia invaded Ukraine, and Mr Malikov has not been heard from since. On Monday, Ukraine released a video of a captured soldier apologizing for his involvement in the invasion.
“He had no idea they could send him to Ukraine,” Mr Malikov’s brother, Rashid Alaberganov, said in a telephone interview from Russia’s south-central Bashkortostan region. “Everyone is in a state of shock.”
The reality of the war is rising all over Russia.
On Wednesday, the Russian Ministry of Defense for the first time announced the deaths of Russian servicemen in the conflict. Although data on casualties during the war are known to be unreliable – and Ukraine has estimated the total number of Russians killed in the thousands – 498 Moscow recognized for the seven-day battle is the largest in any of its military operations since the Chechen war. which marked the beginning of the term of President Vladimir Putin in 1999.
Russians, who have long avoided engaging in politics, are now realizing that their country is struggling with a deadly conflict, even as the Kremlin becomes increasingly aggressive in its attempts to shape the narrative. His delayed suppression of freedoms has recently become a whirlwind of repression as the last remnants of the free press face extinction.
This week, lawmakers proposed a sentence of 15 years in prison for people who publish “fakes” of the war, with rumors of a recent border closure or martial law. The education ministry has scheduled a video tutorial to be shown in schools across the country on Thursday, describing the war against Ukraine as a “liberation mission”.
And in Moscow, the regional office of the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia last Thursday made 2,000 calls a day.
“The parents’ first question is: What happened to my child?” Said Alexander Latinin, a senior commission official. – Is he alive?
Taking advantage of the concerns of Russian families, Ukraine insisted on announcing the fact that many young Russian soldiers were being killed or taken prisoner – a reality that the Russian military did not acknowledge until Sunday, the fourth day of the war. Ukrainian government agencies and volunteers have released videos of disoriented Russian prisoners of war, saying they had no idea they were about to be part of the invasion until just before it began, and photos and footage show the bodies of Russian soldiers scattered across the country. streets and fields.
The videos reach some Russians directly. Evgenia A. Ivanova, for example, identified her friend Viktor A. Golubev, who appeared in one of the videos. In it, Mr Golubev said he “felt guilty for his wrongdoing” on Ukrainian soil and called on President Vladimir Putin “to find a compromise to avoid war”.
For some Russians, the casualties are reason enough to oppose the war, and OVD-Info, an activist group listing the arrests, counted at least 7,359 Russians detained during seven days of protests in dozens of cities across the country.
“This is the third decade of the 21st century and we are watching the news of people burning in tanks and bombed buildings,” wrote Alexei A. Navalny, an opposition leader in a social media post from the prison on Wednesday, urging Russians to continue fighting. collect despite withering police repression. “Let’s not be ‘against the war.’ Let’s fight the war. “
Members of the Russian elite also continued to speak. Lyudmila Narusova, a member of Russia’s upper house of parliament, told the independent Dozhd TV channel on Sunday that dead Russian soldiers in Ukraine lay unburied; wild, stray dogs gnaw on bodies that in some cases cannot be identified because they have been burned. ”
“I do not identify with those representatives of the state who speak in favor of the war,” Ms. Narusova said. “I don’t think they know what they’re doing. They carry out orders without thinking. “
Russia’s government-funded international think tank has published an article by a prominent expert describing the war as a strategic failure. Expert Ivan Timofeev said Ukrainian society would now “see Russia as an enemy for decades to come”. He added a veiled warning to government officials who are now dealing with people who speak out against the war.
“History shows that those who seek ‘traitors’ sooner or later fall victim to ‘enthusiasts’ and ‘benefactors’ themselves,” wrote Mr Timofeev, the council’s program director.
But discontent showed no signs of affecting Mr Putin’s campaign as Russia’s attack on Ukraine widened, with heavy fighting in the port city of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov. The government has signaled that it will only intensify its crackdown on critics of the war – including those who called it a “war” and not, in the Kremlin’s innocuous terms, a “special military operation”.
“Those who commit forgeries must be punished in the most severe way,” said Vasily Piskarev, a senior member of Putin’s party. “They discredit the absolutely legal and understandable actions of our armed forces.
His proposed sentence: 15 years in prison. The Kremlin-controlled parliament will pass the law on Friday.
Some feared that Mr Putin could go even further, suppressing dissent to an extent not seen in Soviet-era Russia. Tatiana Stanovaya, a long-time scholar who studied Putin, wrote that it was “more than logical” to expect lawmakers this week to approve martial law to block the open Internet, ban all protests and limit the Russians to be able to leave the country.
Such speculation, fueled by how quickly the Kremlin was moving to block access to individual media outlets and arrest protesters, has prompted a growing number of Russians to flee the country.
The war between Russia and Ukraine: key things you need to know
One city has been captured. Russian troops gained control of Kherson, the first Ukrainian city to be conquered during the war. Overtaking Kherson is important because it allows the Russians to control most of Ukraine’s southern coast and push west toward the city of Odessa.
Echo of Moscow, Russia’s leading liberal radio station, was taken off the air on Tuesday for the first time since the 1991 Soviet coup attempt. he was blocked.
“It is clear that the personal security of some of us is at stake,” wrote Tikhon Dzyadko, the channel’s editor-in-chief, explaining why he decided to “temporarily” leave.
There was also evidence that although the war surprised many Russians, a significant number of people accepted it as inevitable or imposed on Russia by aggressive NATO. The economic crisis caused by harsh Western sanctions has solidified this narrative for some. The ruble reached new lows on Wednesday as more companies such as Siemens and Oracle announced they would cut back on operations in Russia and as the central bank ordered the Moscow Stock Exchange to remain closed on Thursday for the fourth day in a row.
At a Moscow mall on Wednesday, a young couple lined up for ATM money said they opposed the war. Yet they said the way the world is punishing them for this is also not fair, given that the United States has waged its own wars in recent decades without being subjected to harsh international sanctions.
“Just as you can criticize the government, you can criticize Western countries,” said Maxim Filatov, 25, who runs a hookah business. “When there were similar situations in other countries, including the United States, there were no such attacks and they did not bring the country into crisis.
And the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers, although it witnessed first-hand the tragedy caused by the war, had decided to support it, according to Mr Latinine, the senior official. He echoed Mr Putin, who last week described his “special military operation” as “self-defense”.
“We understand that no armed conflict comes without casualties,” Mr Latinin said. “But it was a necessary step because it was impossible to continue like that.”
Ivan Nechepurenko reports from Sochi, Russia, and Anton Troyanovsky from Dubai. Alina Lobzina contributed to the reports from Moscow, and Mark Santora from Lviv, Ukraine.