The Committee of Mothers and Wives, which watches over the rights of Russian soldiers at the front, is dissolved after being declared a foreign agent
The Committee of Mothers and Wives, an organization that watches over the rights of Russian recruits and soldiers sent to the front lines in Ukraine, announced its dissolution on Friday after being declared a foreign agent by the authorities in order to hinder their activities.
“We do not want to continue working with that stigma. It is humiliating for women,” said her boss, Olga Tsukanova, in a video posted on YouTube.
The committee was created after Russian President Vladimir Putin decreed in September 2022 the mobilization of 300,000 reservists, causing the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Russians of military age.
Since then, the organization has denounced numerous violations, from sending recruits to the front, to problems with the supply of equipment, and poor maintenance conditions.
In order to silence their protests, the Ministry of Justice included the committee in the list of foreign agents, although it admitted that it does not receive foreign funding.
Justice argued that Tsukanova and her collaborators spoke out against the Russian military campaign and spread a negative image of military service, among other things.
“I do not recognize myself as a foreign agent. I do not work in the interest of any other foreign state, only in the interest of Russia and the Russian people,” he stressed.
Putin refused to invite the group when he held a meeting in the Kremlin with a group of women to discuss mobilization, most of whom were close to the Kremlin party.
Today, she assured that, even if the committee is dissolved, the “brave and authentic patriotic” women who make it up will continue working to defend the interests of “mothers, wives, sisters and daughters.”
The Russian Ministry of Defense has not published official figures for deaths in its ranks since it placed them at 5,937 in September 2022, although independent sources such as the Meduza portal estimate up to 47,000 Russian soldiers killed in action. (EFE)
