Detained mother of mobilised Russian soldier released from custody after 48 hours

A Russian mother who was detained on Sunday while staging a solo picket in Moscow demanding the demobilisation of her son after three years of fighting in Ukraine has been released, video footage posted on Tuesday by the wife of another conscript has shown.

Lidia Yegorova said she would reveal details of what had happened to her over the last two days at a later date, and thanked all those who had offered her their support. It later emerged that Yegorova had been fined for disobeying a police officer and “discrediting the army”. Funds to pay Yegorova’s fines are reportedly being collected by the relatives of other conscripts.

Yegorova was detained on Sunday as she staged a picket near the Russian Defence Ministry, demanding the return of her son from the frontline in Ukraine. Yegorova staged her protest on the third anniversary of Putin’s announcement of partial mobilisation in Russia in September 2022.

Although the Russian authorities announced the end of mobilisation on 31 October 2022, no decree officially ending it has ever been issued, and drafted soldiers have been serving indefinitely ever since.

Amid reports of conscripts being forced into signing contracts with the Defence Ministry against their will, repeated protests by their wives and mothers have so far failed to bring about the return of their husbands and sons from the war, as Russia continues to stifle any attempts at dissent.

“Last year, solo pickets by relatives of mobilised soldiers were ‘allowed’,” Maria Semyonova, another soldier’s wife demanding her husband’s return home, wrote on her Telegram channel on Sunday.

Semyonova added that she had personally picketed in front of the Defence Ministry and the Presidential Administration in previous years without being detained by the police. “But now, that’s it — they’re telling us to pipe down.”