Russian mum's fight to save sons from Putin's war
Steve Rosenberg, Moscow - 6 hours ago
When Marina's two sons were conscripted last winter to the Russian army she welcomed the idea of her children doing a year's military service."I told them that they had to serve," Marina tells me, "it was their duty to the motherland."
But a few weeks later she began to worry. Her sons had been deployed to an area close to the border with Ukraine.
On 24 February President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops to invade Ukraine. That day Marina (not her real name) lost contact with her sons.
"Time stopped for me. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep," she told me. "I exchanged messages with the mothers of other conscripts from the same unit. It turned out that many of them had lost contact with their children, too."
The Kremlin promised that Russian conscripts would not be sent to Ukraine.
So where were Marina's sons?
"I got in the car and started searching. On the phone one of the commanders insisted that they were on military exercises out in the fields. I said: 'I've driven round all the fields near here where there had been exercises. They're not there. Please don't lie to me.' He hung up."
"Once, out of desperation, I tried to drive into Ukraine. Of course, they didn't let me through. There were check-points everywhere."
"Then the casualties started arriving. I got a call from someone telling me there were dead and wounded. I rushed to the military hospital."
Marina's sons were not there, but she was shocked by what she saw.
"In the military hospital there wasn't enough medicine or bandages. Local residents supplied everything. The soldiers were cold and hungry. Local people with a big heart were bringing food and drink to the hospital."
Eventually someone at her sons' military unit admitted that they were, indeed, in Ukraine.
"I was told the terrifying news: 'Your children have signed military contracts to be professional soldiers. They're taking part in the special military operation [in Ukraine]. They will return as heroes'."
"What on earth are you talking about? They had no plans to sign a contract," was her response. "They've been in the army for three months. They've only held a gun once. They've only been to a firing range once. Most of the time they've been shovelling snow."
"I wrote to the prosecutor-general's office asking to investigate. I told them there was no way my sons could have signed military contracts. I was certain. Other mothers wrote, too. They all knew their children." . . .
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61599932
