Illustrative photo – Russian President Vladimir Putin on February 8, 2023.
Moscow – Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated women, and especially women serving in the armed forces, on International Women's Day, which is still a major holiday in Russia. Russian journalists working in exile, for example in the Meduza server, recall Putin's words spoken a year ago, when he promised women that he would not send men undergoing compulsory military service in the army to fight in Ukraine, nor would he call up reserve soldiers to fight.
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Already in September, however, the Russian president announced a “partial mobilization”, during which the authorities drafted hundreds of thousands of men into the army. According to open sources, some of them soon lost their lives at the front in Ukraine without receiving more thorough training. There was also talk about conscripts who died in Ukraine.
“I would like to emphasize that soldiers undergoing basic military service do not and will not participate in combat operations. There will also be no additional call-up of reservists. Only professional soldiers will handle the assigned tasks. I am convinced that they will reliably ensure security and peace for the people of Russia,” Putin declared a year ago .
Today, in addition to congratulating “mothers, grandmothers, sisters, wives, daughters and friends in the cities and villages of our great country”, the president especially congratulated the female soldiers who “chose the highest mission – the defense of the homeland”, whether in combat units or in the role of military doctors and nurses. In particular, Putin also addressed women whose relatives are fighting in Ukraine. The president also spoke of the “receptiveness of a woman's heart” in “difficult moments, in times of trial”.
On Putin's orders, Russian troops invaded the neighboring country 378 days ago, triggering the worst land conflict in Europe since the end of the second world war. The war is estimated to have already claimed tens of thousands of military lives and thousands of civilian deaths; drove millions of people from their homes. The Ukrainian General Prosecutor's Office said today that as a result of Russian aggression, 464 children lost their lives, and another 931 were injured. However, these data are neither complete nor final.
According to critics of the situation, the victims of the war were also the remnants of freedom in Russia, where newly adopted laws threaten to severely punish all dissidents who dare to deviate from the official interpretation of the war as a “special military operations” in which Russian soldiers do not attack civilians and civilian targets or commit war crimes, despite the facts and evidence to the contrary.
