Date: 03/23/22
Author: Kent Moors, Ph.D.
In the last Spy Tale (“Another Moscow Soldier; Another Time,” Classified Intelligence Brief, March 16, 2022), I talked about Sergei Baranov. Sergei was a Soviet army veteran who became the center of a movement to track down thousands of soldiers simply lost during the ill-fated Afghan War.
That and some news coming from contacts prompted my wife Marina to try contacting an unusual woman she met and wrote about during another trying time in Moscow. This one involved the Chechen War, waged at the turn of the century by the Kremlin against a rebellious internal republic in the Caucasus.
That was also called a “special military operation” by the government, as it has required that the current foray into Ukraine be referred. It is illegal to call it either a “war” or an “invasion.” These days that could get you up to 15 years in jail. For some this is merely political semantics. But for others it masks a recuring habit of covering up one national embarrassment or another.
Unfortunately, in each of these military endeavors, emerging intel is telling the outside world that Russian military leaders are continuing to use raw recruits in combat situations with insufficient training and support. Some things, it seems, never change.
My column last week prompted some discussions at home and the information arriving from Moscow once again involved a feisty woman Marina had met some two decades ago. As I write this, attempts to contact her have been unsuccessful.
Her name is Valentina. Back then, she was the head of a mothers’ group seeking to keep their sons from military service. Shortly after Marina had spent time with Valentina and wrote about it in her syndicated Moscow Diary column, the activist had been arrested.
Well, seems the firebrand is still at it. According to a report arriving on Friday, Valentina has been detained again. Mothers, you see, are once again leading the protests against the army, this time over Ukraine.
We have not yet been able to find her, although an ad hoc collection abroad is setting up ways to provide legal support for those being detained.
In the interim, a return to Marina’s earlier writing makes sense. As with other Diary entries, I have added photos and an editorial note.
Moscow Diary
Diary Entry for November 12, 2000: “Anti-draft Movement is Sparked by Mothers”
Last Monday evening, I found myself in the Khamovniki Army Barracks situated down the street from Moscow’s famous Gorky Park [editorial note from Kent: the Khamovniki District is today the central showpiece of Moscow’s renaissance and includes a number of famous spots, including the huge Luzhniki Stadium where Putin held his war rally last week].
I was there to attend an unusual meeting, a now weekly affair which is becoming a visible statement on how far freedom may have traveled in the new Russia.
The Soldiers’ Mothers Committee of Moscow organizes these events and the large auditorium was packed. Murals depicting past Soviet military victories and the steadfast gaze from portraits glorifying dead field marshals adorned the hallways leading in. The sheer expanse of the auditorium dwarfed the single small table on the stage. The surroundings hardly prepared one for what was about to happen.
From behind the table a slightly built woman began to speak. “My name is Valentina,” she said. “I have given birth to two sons. The older died in the army, I still do not know how. The younger is now of military age.” After pausing a bid, perhaps for effect, Valentina then said: “I am here to give advice on how to avoid military service.”
The crowd broke into applause. The irony of having a meeting on beating the draft in a military location could hardly have been overlooked. But it indicates the problem army officials have these days in meeting quotas or generating interest in defending the nation. After years of official silence or outright lies about those missing in battle or killed in brutal hazing, the mothers have had it.
The Mothers Committee is the only group who could pull this off. The barracks command has no desire to arrest them, and the mothers have considerable support among the personnel there anyway.
The tide of protest has been rising for some time. Over a decade ago, the initial mothers crusade was largely responsible for forcing then Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to end the Afghan debacle.
Since then, their newsletters and press releases have targeted the desperate situation facing young draftees – deaths by starvation, chronic alcoholism, bitter ethnic battles among the ranks, and the collapse in minimum health expectations.
Almost without exception, soldiers are leaving service in far worse health than when they arrived. The Defense Ministry had admitted that 45 percent of draftees are mustered out in advance of their full term because of health reasons. For that matter, more than a third of potential draftees are rejected up front because of medical problems. As the overall health of the country’s general population continues to deteriorate, the problem is bound to get worse.
This situation has not been lost on the anti-draft movement. Sympathetic doctors now routinely provide grounds for exemptions. When one cannot be found, there is the bustling under-the-table economy for those who can afford it – exemptions can be purchased from obliging members of an underpaid military medical staff.
Other methods are also thriving in a market created out of desperation. University students remain exempt from service only if they receive passing grades in required military training classes. It is not unusual for instructors to accept payment for passing grades. Some are now even requiring such considerations.
According to one student I met during the Monday evening session, the going rate is $750 (American) – each academic term. This 19-year-old, who for obvious reasons refused to give me his name, has a part time job to make what he calls his “salvation money.” On the higher end of the income ladder, about $3,000 might get you somebody else’s voyenniye biletyi. This is the paperwork provided to each conscript upon competition of military service. The army’s paperwork is in such disarray that they are rarely checked.
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The activities of the Mothers Committee move into high gear twice a year – during the spring and fall conscription seasons. The latter is now in full swing, explaining the huge crowd in the auditorium. Despite pledges to cut the number of draftees, the current level of 188,402 set by the military brass (only in Russia could they come up with such an exact although fictitious number) is actually a slight increase from the spring call up. Few think that the government will reach the set figure.
Already, according to one newspaper report, they have resorted to more than 31,000 arrest warrants for draft evasion. Commentators have suggested this is probably well less than half of the desertion rate.
For mothers like Valentina, the problem is immediate. In addition to a maternal desire to shield her last son from the horrors of the army, she also desperately needs his income. In a matter-of-fact way, she describes her condition. “My son has little education but has found a job. My pension is not sufficient. I cannot survive without the money he earns.”
She remained emotionless while speaking. Others in the audience nodding in support indicated she was hardly the only one experiencing the problem. In a society where women are outliving men almost 15 years on average, her plight is becoming a familiar one.
Until the draft is over, Valentina will chair these meetings each Monday and thousands will come. She is joined by others telling similar stories, as well as volunteers manning locations in the corridors to advise on filling out deferral forms, how to conduct inexpensive legal delaying tactics, and documenting medical problems.
But such devices are not the government’s main problem. Simple women like Valentina are. Daily the words with which she ends every meeting she chairs are being repeated cross the country. “I have given one son for Mother Russia,” she always concludes. “The second son is mine.”
I briefly chat with a militia (police) officer on guard outside the armory. “Will you arrest her,” I ask him point blank. “Nobody wants to,” he answers. “After all, how can you detain somebody who reminds you of your grandmother?”
Several weeks after the above Diary appeared, Valentina was arrested. After a delay of a few days, she was released. A huge crowd of mothers holding vigil outside the police station may have had something to do with that.
Valentina is now well past 70 but continues to be a thorn in the side of the military. After all, it’s the women who have kept Russia from committing suicide for centuries. One thing she said after their meeting all those years ago has always stuck with Marina. When asked what she would do if her son was saved from service, she smiled and responded: “Save the next one. That is what mothers do.”
Dr. Kent Moors
This is an installment of Classified Intelligence Brief, your guide to what’s really happening behind the headlines… and how to profit from it. Dr. Kent Moors served the United States for 30 years as one of the most highly decorated intelligence operatives alive today (including THREE Presidential commendations).
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