Moscow: Journalists were briefly arrested during a demonstration of soldiers’ wives

Amid Russia’s presidential campaign, Moscow police briefly arrested at least twenty journalists on Saturday during a rally outside the Kremlin walls organized by the wives of soldiers fighting in Ukraine demanding the return of their husbands from the front.

An AFP videographer arrested during the demonstration said about 20 to 25 journalists, all men, were in a police van with him and were taken to a police station for identity checks.

About three hours later, all these journalists were released after receiving a warning from the Russian Interior Ministry, an AFP videographer reported. Among those arrested were several employees of foreign media, including the American press agency AP, the Dutch media NOS, the German magazine Spiegel and a French freelance reporter. Before these arrests, 40 to 50 mobilized women laid flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier under the Kremlin walls, near Red Square.

According to independent media Sota Vision, several arrests of people opposed to military mobilization also took place in front of Vladimir Putin’s presidential election campaign headquarters in Moscow. Sota Vision published this Saturday on the social network X the testimony of the wife of a conscript: “The special military operation is a great tragedy that occurred between two fraternal peoples. And I understood this from the very beginning. »

In the morning, on Telegram, the Moscow prosecutor’s office warned of possible prosecution in case of participation in “unauthorized demonstrations.”

Actions largely ignored by Russian media

For several weeks, the wives of soldiers mobilized to fight in Ukraine met regularly in protest. The anger of relatives of the reservists mobilized on Vladimir Putin’s orders in September 2022 is a sensitive issue for authorities, who have so far been careful not to crush the nascent insurgency.

In recent months, several social media groups have emerged targeting relatives of mobilized soldiers. One of the most active, called “Put Home” (“The Way Home”), calls for demonstrations every Saturday. Previously, during other demonstrations of this type in Moscow, the police did not intervene, although in Russia any outbreak of protest is usually harshly repressed.

The activism of mobilized women has been largely ignored by Russian state media as the Kremlin wants to project an image of unity around Vladimir Putin ahead of his inevitable re-election in the March 2024 presidential election, even if he opposes the war in Ukraine. wants to challenge him at the ballot box. According to the Russian president, 244 thousand mobilized military personnel out of a total number of 617 thousand people are currently fighting in Ukraine.