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Families of Russian draftees release manifesto and petition against ‘indefinite mobilization’

Source: Meduza

A group of relatives of mobilized Russian soldiers has published a manifesto and petition against “indefinite mobilization.” Both documents appeared on the Telegram channel Put Domoi (“The Way Home”).

In the manifesto, the draftees’ loved ones call on their fellow citizens for help, saying the Russian government has turned its backs on soldiers and their families.

We’re being betrayed and exterminated by our own people. […] We were fucked over and you’ll be fucked over. All this time, all they showed us was lazy stability, reliability, and safety. We remember how the president promised that reservists wouldn’t be called up, that only professional volunteers would fight in the special military operation. And then they sent our loved ones to Ukraine. The promises proved empty. Many will never return. Mobilization turned out to be a terrible mistake. We were punished for our law-abidingness. Behind the smokescreen of stability, our men pay with blood, and we pay with our health and tears.

The statement’s authors warn that “nobody is immune to [our loved ones’] fate in the future.” They go on to call the situation “absurd” and to criticize Vladimir Putin, though they also express hope that he will “hear their pleas.”

The president has declared 2024 to be the Year of the Family. It’s ironic, given that wives are crying without their husbands, children are growing up without fathers, and many have already become orphans. Meanwhile, a satanist cannibal who re-offended after his first prison sentence will be released again in six months, having atoned for his serial murders by fighting in the special military operation. Our president does have a sense of humor after all! [...] Apparently, our motherland is being liberated for the very best of society: killers, drunks, migrants, and outrageously wealthy officials and their children (speaking of whom, why aren’t they in the trenches?).

The same Telegram channel shared the group’s petition for the return of mobilized soldiers and the establishment of a maximum service term. The authors of the appeal note that they’re “not interested in rocking the boat and destabilizing the political situation” in Russia.

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