In the former stronghold of Putin’s opponents, dull patriotism and fear have prevailed since the attack on Ukraine. The only thing that gives faint hope is the memorial service for Navalny.
In mid-December, Antonina’s husband called from the war to say goodbye to her. He was sure he would be sent to his death. She should do everything she can to bring him home. He cried. “I became hysterical,” says Antonina, 42, a trained seamstress. She’s talking about a messenger service; This seems safer to her than a meeting. She doesn’t want to say what her husband’s name is. She’s already in enough trouble. Once the police came to her home, then an employee of “Center E”, a police department that combats terrorism, called.
Since October 2022, Antonina has been campaigning for her husband, who worked as a driver for a courier service in Moscow before the war. At that time, a district police officer rang the doorbell and her husband opened it. Antonina was just on the phone with him. The officer handed out a military notice.
Antonina and her husband had never understood the meaning of this war, and her husband had no intention of taking part in it. He was already 46 years old at the time and suffering from a stomach ulcer. “Don’t get upset,” they said in the military office. “They’re going into the reserve.” Antonina says: “We are law-abiding citizens, we believed that.” Now she sees it differently. “Once you get into it, you can’t get out.”
A woman is led away after she wanted to lay flowers at the memorial on the Kremlin wall. Every Saturday the “Way Home” movement meets here to silently protest for the return of the soldiers
© Alyona Rodionova / star
At first he was deployed in the hinterland and had to repair tanks. But his stomach rebelled and he was taken to a military hospital. Then he called. He now belongs to the assault brigade. Most of the soldiers in his unit were also injured or sick, her husband reported: “They want to use us.” The word probably shouldn’t sound as bad as “kill.” Another new expression that means “kill” is “to nullify.”
In her anger and worry, Antonina joined the Way Home movement a few months ago. Relatives of conscripted men are calling for the soldiers to be sent back to their families. Most of them are against the war. The Russian authorities therefore treat them like enemies of the state. TV propagandists are spreading the word that the activists are spies, paid by the West. Every Saturday, dozens of security officers film women wearing white hats and laying flowers at the “Eternal Fire” on the Kremlin wall as a sign of their protest. As if they showed up there with Molotov cocktails! Journalists are dragged away. Nothing is allowed to disturb the dead silence that has gripped the country since the war began two years ago.
“Everyone is afraid”
The war against Ukraine also changed Russia suddenly. Even the people in the capital fell silent soon after the war began: out of fear of repression and also out of indifference. Out of the feeling that you can’t change anything anyway. And because it’s easier to adapt than to risk your own head in a totalitarian state. “Many people have absolutely no idea what’s going on in Ukraine,” says Antonina. “We want to make it clear to people: It can happen to anyone.”