‘Fake’ label appears on anti-mobilization Telegram channel run by draftees’ wives

A label reading “fake” has appeared on The Way Home (“Put Domoi”), a Telegram channel run by Russian women advocating for their mobilized husbands to be sent home from the war in Ukraine.

The same label has appeared on local chat groups associated with the channel in Crimea, Saratov, Yaroslavl, Rostov-on-Don, Kaliningrad, Novosibirsk, and Omsk, according to the outlet Agentstvo. The descriptions of the channel and the chats all now read, “Warning: Many users reported that this channel impersonates a famous person or organization.”

In a message posted on Thursday evening, The Way Home called the label a “seal of quality,” adding, “We’re dealing with technical support. We’re still moving forward and won’t give up!”

The channel’s administrators told journalists from Agentstvo that the new label is the result of a “coordinated attack” by propagandist Vladimir Solovyov “and company.” Agentstvo noted that on November 16, Solovyov’s channel, which has over a million subscribers, shared a post that included The Way Home on a list of anti-war resources and alleged “participants in subversive activities created by foreign intelligence agencies.”

Additionally, lawyer and pro-Kremlin blogger Ilya Remeslo claimed on Telegram that the “fake” label on The Way Home appeared because he reported the channel for stealing another organization’s name. Calling the anti-mobilization channel a “project of the Navalnists,” Remeslo argued that “housewives” wouldn’t have the time or the competence to “create social media pages, moderate them, write posts and legal documents, file lawsuits in court, go to the hearings, and coordinate their activity in the regions.”

On November 27, The Way Home published a manifesto and petition against “indefinite mobilization,” accusing the Russian government of turning its back on soldiers and their families.