While dozens of single mothers have gone public saying they were snubbed by the Kremlin, Putin sat down with a former government official, the mother of a senior military and police official from Chechnya and other women active in state-sponsored anti-war NGOs. The Guardian has been able to confirm the identities of at least three of the women who met with Putin on Friday in a highly publicized meeting at his residence in Novo-Ogaryovo on the outskirts of Moscow. None of the women are critical of the war against Ukraine, and several have publicly tried to allay fears of mistreatment, inadequate training and other dangers facing Russian troops being massed to be sent to the front. However, the very fact of the meeting showed that the Kremlin is concerned about the perception of its mobilization at home. “It is clear that life is more complicated and diverse than it appears on TV screens or even on the Internet – you can’t trust anything there, there are a lot of fakes, deceptions, lies,” Putin said. said the women, sitting around a large, oval table. “That’s why we gathered with you, that’s why I proposed this meeting, because I wanted to hear from you firsthand.” One of the women sitting next to Putin was Olesya Shigina, an ultra-conservative Russian poet, filmmaker and activist who recently traveled to the Donbass region to direct a pro-war film featuring Russian troops. In a radio interview last month with Russian radio station Vesti FM, Sigina dismissed reports of growing anger among Russian conscripts over poor equipment and a lack of basic training. “On the front, nobody is angry with the government… They have one goal there, and that is to win. A person who knows Shigina described her as “radically pro-government”. “Ideologically, he has the same views as Dugin,” they said, referring to Russian arch-nationalist Alexander Dugin, whose daughter Darya Dugina was killed outside Moscow in August in a car bomb attack. The person, who requested anonymity so they could speak freely, said one of Shigina’s sons had volunteered to fight in Ukraine. It was not immediately clear whether Shigina has direct ties to the Russian government. According to local media, last month he took part in a “humanitarian” program sponsored by the Russian government, which took place in the Donbass region. Another of the women is Zharadat Aguyeva from Chechnya, the North Caucasus region ruled by Ramzan Kadyrov. Local state media reported Friday that he has two sons fighting in Ukraine: one is a senior military commander in the Zapad-Akhmat battalion, the other is commander of a regional police station in Chechnya. The family appears to be close to Chechnya’s leadership. Kadyrov wished the two brothers good health in a Telegram post in October. They were also seen fighting in Ukraine alongside his three teenage sons. Kadyrov said that Rustam Aguyev, the police commander, told him that his sons fought “bravely, coldly, resolutely.” In a video posted in late October, Aguyev threatened Chechens who were trying to avoid fighting in the war. “You guys with scraggly beards and tight pants, who gnaw sunflower seeds and talk a lot,” he said at the time, according to an RFE/RL report. “I swear to Allah, I would be ashamed to go out while my brothers are fighting and dying. Its a shame. You are desecrating our history. If we come home, we won’t let you out on any of our streets.” A third woman in the video, Nadezhda Uzunova, is an activist with an ultra-patriotic veterans’ NGO called Fighting Brotherhood, which is led by ex-general and ex-governor of the Moscow region Boris Gromov. Uzunova recently posted videos on her social media showing her traveling to Donbass and celebrating in Red Square after Russia declared the annexation of four Ukrainian regions. Uzunova has closer ties to local government: she previously served as an adviser on local politics in Russia’s Khakassia region and also served as a member of former governor Viktor Zimin’s campaign staff. Veterans’ rights activists had previously told the Guardian that they expected the Kremlin to choose – or even falsify – its list of soldiers’ mothers for the event in order to prevent a scandal from unfolding. In this case, it appears he simply chose women with proven pro-Kremlin bona fides who would not challenge the Russian president on the war. Valentina Melnikova, a veteran activist who founded Russia’s Committee of Military Mothers in 1989, had said she had not been invited to the meeting. She said her organization would not feel comfortable being represented next to “relatives of those mobilized [soldiers] who agree to let their wives and sons die at the front’. “They will take people from these party activists,” he said. “Or they could just get someone from the FSB … if Putin really wanted to meet with the women they had [complained] in these internet posts, he could call them out and do that. But it won’t happen.” Olga Chukanova, the co-head of the Council of Mothers and Wives, whose son serves in the army, has previously demanded that Putin meet “real” women. “Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin]are you a man or what?” he said in a video post. “Have the courage to look us in the eye, not with chosen wives and mothers in your pocket, but with real [women]who have traveled from various cities here to meet with you?’
