Vladimir Putin met with the mothers of servicemen who took part in the war in Ukraine. A few days before the event, it became known that neither the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers, nor the Council of Mothers and Wives of the Mobilized was invited to it. Moreover, representatives from these organizations, trying to get an invitation from the Kremlin, found themselves being followed.
As a result, 17 women came to the meeting with the president. The Kremlin’s press service and Russia 24 interrupted the broadcast immediately after Putin’s opening speech, which was expected: his press secretary Dmitry Peskov had previously warned about this, saying that the publication of the recording would entirely “depend on the conversation, whether mothers want it or not ".
Who attended the meeting
As the “We Can Explain” project found out , Putin’s interlocutors, among other things, turned out to be functionaries of the ONF and other pro-government movements, officials and members of United Russia. In particular, among them were:
- Moscow official and United Russia deputy Olga Beltseva , who holds the post of deputy director of the State Budgetary Institution Yunost Leisure and Sports Center, a member of the Otradninsky Council of Deputies. As stated on her page, her specialty is “providing social assistance to privileged categories of citizens.”
- Head of the Moscow Region Executive Committee of the ONF Yulia Belekhova , who heads the Association of Chairmen of Councils of Apartment Buildings in the Moscow Region. In 2016, she was on the lists of United Russia candidates for the State Duma.
- Nadezhda Uzunova , who is in charge of the Ust-Abakan "Combat Brotherhood" for collecting humanitarian aid for the mobilized.
- Marina Migunova, member of the Public Chamber of Orekhovo-Zueva , who collects humanitarian aid for the mobilized.
What did Putin say
Putin said he shares the pain of all those who lost loved ones in the war.
“I don’t dare to say any formal, standard things related to the expression of condolences, but I want you to know: I personally, the entire leadership of the country – we share this pain, we understand that nothing can replace the loss of a son, the loss of a child, especially for the mother, to whom we owe the birth, who carried him, fed him, ”he said.
Putin also said that he communicates with the participants of the war by phone:
“When I sometimes talk to them, I talk on the phone with some, directly with the guys directly, in any case, I spoke with those who even surprised me with their mood, their attitude to business. They didn't expect these calls from me. Also through moms, by the way, these calls were. (These conversations) give me every reason to tell me that they are heroes, it's true."
The last time Putin met in this format with relatives of the crew of the sunken submarine "Kursk". Here is how the format of that meeting was described by Kommersant-Vlast:
At the meeting, no one was allowed to use voice recorders. Moreover, even notebooks caused extreme irritation of the military and employees of the Federal Security Service. The only television camera was at the very top of the assembly hall, in the film room, behind glass. The sound was transmitted to the bus of the German RTL television company, whose satellite dish was deployed in front of the garrison House of Officers in Vidyaevo at the suggestion of the film crew of the domestic RTR company, which urgently needed a satellite dish, and since they did not have one, the RTR employees quickly drove to the checkpoint before entering Vidyaevo, where there were more than enough of these plates, they chose the German one. The NTV television company's OB van was also there, but, of course, it had no chance of being marked by the RTR group.
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Thus, "Vlast" has the only more or less complete version of the transcript. It was made from a voice recorder, which worked all the two hours and forty minutes that it lasted. She has only one drawback: it is not always audible. Some replicas of both the president and relatives are lost. Appropriate notes are made in these places in the transcript. But in our version there is no censorship.
A transcript of that conversation can be read here .