‘I want him to come home’ Eleven Russian police officers arrest the mother of a mobilized soldier for holding a sign with only a date
On September 21, the third anniversary of Russia’s “partial mobilization,” police in Moscow arrested Lidia Yegorova, the mother of a mobilized soldier, for staging a protest outside the Defense Ministry. Yegorova’s sign bore only the dates “21.09.22–21.09.25.” Her trial was scheduled for the next day but never took place, according to her friends. Her lawyer wasn’t allowed to see her, and as of this writing, neither her whereabouts nor her condition are known. The independent Okno project recounted her arrest amid the Kremlin’s growing crackdown on relatives of mobilized soldiers who dare to speak out. Meduza shares a summary of their reporting.
Lidia Yegorova, whose son was called up in Russia’s fall 2022 draft, lasted less than five minutes with her protest sign before police moved in. “Senior Lieutenant Shesterkin warned me that if I hold even a legal solo protest about mobilization, I’ll be detained,” she said moments before her arrest. “That proves it — the mobilized are off-limits. You can’t talk about them.”
Her fellow protester, Paulina Safonova, recalled how eleven officers surrounded Yegorova, twisting her arms and tearing her jacket as she refused to go. When Paulina tried to film, she was shoved aside. Another woman, Anastasia, said Lidia tried to explain herself to the police, but to no avail: “I want him to come home. It’s been three years. This isn’t World War II — the whole nation isn’t rising up to fight. As you can see, you’re not either. Well, shoot me while you’re at it.”
Relatives of other mobilized soldiers who came to support Lidia weren’t allowed inside the station. Her phone was seized, and even the lawyer they quickly hired was barred from seeing her. She now faces charges of disobeying police orders.
Paulina’s husband was mobilized when their daughter was born three years ago. An IT worker, he chose not to hide from the draft. From the front, he backs his wife’s activism, despite commanders ordering him to “shut her up.”
Lidia’s son was drafted in Novosibirsk in September 2022, with officials telling the family he’d be gone six months. A year later, the message changed: soldiers would stay until the “end of the special military operation.” According to Anastasia, Lidia’s son survived a serious wound, but after a brief hospital stay, he was sent back to his unit — still not healed and headed again for the front.
‘We’re tired of burying them’
After three years on the front lines, mobilized soldiers are now being threatened with transfer to assault units — effectively suicide missions, their relatives say.
“Our men wrote to us the other day that anyone refusing to fight will be ‘disposed of,’ sent to the assault troops,” said Anna, the wife of a mobilized soldier, who asked that her name be changed. “That means certain death. Police have already warned us that any protest will end in arrest. They’ve done everything to keep us off the streets. That’s why there are so few of us. Lidia was told directly, as I understand it, so she stripped all the words off her sign and left only numbers. But now they jail you even for numbers.”
A year ago, on the anniversary of the mobilization, police detained 10 wives and mothers of mobilized men who had gathered outside the Defense Ministry. Five of them were fined 15,000 rubles (about $180) each for violating protest rules.
“Just a year ago, we could still hold solo pickets,” wrote Maria Semyonova, the wife of another mobilized soldier. “I stood outside the Defense Ministry more than once, and at the presidential administration too.”
When Russia declared its “partial mobilization” in 2022, officials said more than 300,000 men were drafted. Independent journalists put the real figure at closer to 500,000.
“I’m waiting for the Defense Ministry to wake up and bring our boys home. Three years at the front — and everything we say, everything we do, is branded as discrediting the Defense Ministry. Even a mother wanting her son to come back,” Lidia told police as they arrested her.
Relatives say they no longer demand troop rotations.
“Lidia was right a year ago when she said, ‘We’re tired of burying them.’ We don’t want our men sent home only for others to take their place. We’re demanding full demobilization, immediately. Neither injuries nor medical leave will save them — they’ll drag the wounded and the sick back too,” said Anastasia. She hasn’t heard from her husband in a month.
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