On February 3, police in Moscow detained around twenty members of the media who were covering an event near the Kremlin organized by the wives of men mobilized to fight in Ukraine.
The "Way Home" action was organized exactly 500 days after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced "partial mobilization" in Russia for the war in Ukraine.
Protesters laid flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the entrance to the park in Moscow.
The day before, the call for the protest arrived via the "Put kuci" telegram channel, and all relatives of mobilized soldiers sent to the front and "all interested citizens" were invited.
On February 3, the Moscow Prosecutor's Office warned on the official Telegram channel about responsibility for inviting and participating in events. The announcement states that the department received information about "a public action in the center of Moscow".
After laying flowers, relatives of those mobilized went to Putin's election headquarters to convey to him the request to end the mobilization.
In total, according to official data, 300 thousand people were sent to the front.
At least 42.284 Russian soldiers have been killed since the start of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, according to a January investigation by journalists from Mediazone and the Russian BBC (BBC) service, which identified the dead soldiers.
That number includes 5.089 mobilized soldiers and 7.810 prisoners recruited from Russian prisons, the two media organizations said.
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