Are your volunteers getting a lot of calls from Russian families who suspect their sons, fathers and husbands are in Ukraine?

Frederick Smith

Political correspondent for Russia and the CIS in Moscow.

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Ukrainians have published lists of killed and captured Russian soldiers.

Those who find their relatives on these lists call our committees.

But we cannot help the people: Russia would have to announce a humanitarian ceasefire, at least for a short time, to stop shelling and bombing.

There should be an exchange in which the Russian and Ukrainian sides exchange the bodies of the dead and prisoners.

But there is no such ceasefire.

Can you give a figure on how many people are turning to the "soldier mothers" now?

Honestly, I can't appreciate that.

Some of the calls are anonymous.

Some people also go to our offices in the regions, especially in the Volgograd and Nizhny Novgorod oblasts, because many of the dead are reportedly from there.

What do people say about their sons and husbands?

They didn't know where their loved ones were.

Some were told that maneuvers were going on, some that they would be transferred.

That started in November, December.

Does Russia's military also send recruits to Ukraine or only professional soldiers?

Hard to say.

Since 1996, there has been a practice in the Russian Armed Forces of telling conscripts to sign a contract now and become a professional soldier.

They are then considered to be in use.

This practice continues.

We've been getting calls around the turn of the year from people reporting this, and we've heard again recently of people being forced to sign such statements.

Can conscripts refuse to sign such contracts?

Naturally.

I don't know why they don't.

Why did people who didn't want to go to war in Chechnya refuse in 1995 and 1996, and now no one is resisting?

I do not know why.

Are many Russians looking for their relatives through the Ukrainian site Find Your Relatives, which has been blocked in Russia?

Anyone who can open it looks at it.

And when someone contacts us, we send them links to the Ukrainian lists.

There are many names on it.

We don't have the time, the strength, or the people to look for it ourselves.

Our major task now is to write official letters, to the President, to the military prosecutor's office, so that a humanitarian ceasefire can finally be announced.

Do you believe this is happening?

I don't think anything!

This is the eleventh war in the history of our organization.

We will do everything possible as we have done in the previous wars.

Does this war remind you of another?

The one in Afghanistan?

It reminds me of the first war in Chechnya.

On New Year's Eve from 1994 to 1995, Groznyj was stormed, with tanks and also with bomb attacks.

The Chechens fought back.

Almost 2,500 fallen soldiers and officers remained on the streets of the city, as well as many prisoners.

When our women from the committee went to the commander of the army unit and on their knees asked him to announce a humanitarian ceasefire to collect the bodies of the fallen, he said, "Go to hell, I will not announce any ceasefire." The bodies stayed there .

Then animals ate them, and by the time a cease-fire was announced in March and the bodies were finally brought to Rostov in refrigerated conditions, hardly anyone could be identified.

I also remember a second episode:

In the summer of 1995 there was another ceasefire for the exchange of prisoners.

The Chechens said: "We have almost 1,000 prisoners, we have lists." However, the Ministry of Defense assumed only 200 Russians in Chechen hands and said they would do nothing: "They are traitors to their homeland, we will not look for them."

Like under Soviet dictator Stalin, who called captured Red Army soldiers traitors.

We had 700 people on our lists back then.

Our wives printed them out and went to the headquarters of Aslan Maskhadov (the leader of the Chechen insurgents, ed.) and clarified with his staff who had died, who was buried where, who was still alive, who was in captivity.

Now we're not going to Ukraine.

Because the Ukrainians do what we did: they make lists of prisoners, write about the dead when they can, when they find ID cards that identify people.

Because Ukraine adheres to martial law, the Geneva Convention.

Russia does not comply.

Given the presumably high number of casualties, will there be an anti-war movement in Russia, will there be pressure on the leadership?

I don't want to think about that!

What am I supposed to think instead of this tour?

I know that Russia has ratified all Geneva Conventions, that it is a member of the United Nations.

The country must comply with international rules and must treat the corpses of its soldiers and officers with respect.

And it has to exchange prisoners.

I don't want to know anymore.

I want to try to require the state to fulfill its obligations.

In the meantime, the corpses of the fallen just stay where they are?

The Ukrainians are trying to collect them.

But it is not always possible, because it is very dangerous.