Families of dead Russian soldiers appear even more supportive of military operation
ifteen minutes before midnight, a young Russian conscript named Danila, who had been sent to fight in, picked up his phone to write a message to his family and friends back home in a small town in the Samara region. It was 31 December.
The building was overcrowded, with hundreds of soldiers quartered inside. Military officials originally blamed the soldiers themselves for making telephone calls before the strike, possibly allowing Ukrainian forces to triangulate their position. But friends and families have angrily rejected that claim. “That’s ridiculous,” said the person. “All of Makiivka knew they were living there.”
One on those lists is Timofey Spirkin, a 19-year-old mobilised soldier, who also disappeared the night of the missile strike, said a family friend. Some burials have taken place based on the identification of DNA evidence alone. But in his case, even that has not helped. “People are suffering,” said Irina, the wife of a soldier and one of the group’s most active critics of the Russian military. “Society is shocked by the support of the European Union and the United States of an openly Nazi regime,” a trope used by Putin and on Russian state media to describe Ukraine.Apparently spooked by the possibility of public outrage, the government quickly arranged for public memorial services within days of the rocket strike.
Ekaterina Kolotovkina, the head of an advisory group of army spouses and the wife of Maj Gen Andrei Kolotovkin, a high-ranking military commander, was one of the headline speakers at the government-organised memorial. She had a simple message: “We cannot be broken.” The project stands in contrast to how many families in Russia have felt in recent months – angry, confused, sometimes abandoned. When asked about the people who have complained, she interrupts.
Anya, a volunteer whose husband is a captain in the Russian army, said she began working there during her husband’s deployments. When asked if she knows anyone against the war, she said no. Natalya’s photographs of her brother, Alexander, who was killed while fighting in Ukraine in November.A visit by a Guardian reporter to this region of Russia attracts attention. On highways and in local towns, there are regular signs of surveillance. On an empty road in a small town, a man turns a corner, walks up and asks, “Are you the journalists?” Then he walks away.
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