Soldiers in Russian Army in Ukraine Involved in Protests at Home Even Before Demobilizing – and Some are Sparking Ethnic Conflicts in the Ranks

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 9 – Russian commanders have tried without success to confiscate smartphones from their subordinates because the latter are not only getting news from home but sending video clips back home not only to keep their families up to date but also to put take pressure on officials at all levels.

            The soldiers protest about all the issues that agitate their families and friends at home and often appear in military fatigues with guns, implicitly or not so implicitly threatening to use force on their return to force officials to act. Because they are soldiers, commanders are reluctant to punish them; and officials at home are more likely to make concessions to them.

            Aleksandr Leonidovich, a journalist for Novaya Gazeta, says that such protests by soldiers in Putin’s invasion force are one of the last places where Russians can protest with the expectation that they won’t be punished for their effort and may even succeed in achieving their goals (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/06/07/urbanisty-s-avtomatami).

            He provides numerous examples of what the soldiers have protested, where they are from, and how successful they have been. But one event he recounts should shake the Kremlin even if it does not appear to have succeed, given that a Bashkortostan protest by soldiers from there generated a counterprotest by other soldiers.  

            The full text of Leonidov’s coverage of this event is below:

“In Bashkortostan, environmental protests are closely intertwined with national ones. In January 2024, clashes between citizens and the police occurred in the region, caused by the trial of local oppositionist and environmentalist Fail Alsynov. The "Baimak case" appeared, under which 82 people were subjected to criminal prosecution.

“On January 17, the second day of protests in the Bashkir city of Baymak, a video appeared on YouTube: a group of masked men with machine guns, the letter "Z" carved into the butt of one of them, read a text in Bashkir in support of Alsynov. (youtube.com/watch?v=dvR_hLPFQ3M&t=9s).

“The video is preceded by a threat in Russian: ‘if you do not stop going against our people, our fathers and mothers, we are leaving our positions and coming to you. If you want war, you will get it!"

“On the same day, an alternative video appeared online. A large group of armed people calling themselves "SVO" fighters from Bashkortostan fires machine guns into the air and delivers a speech condemning "extremists from banned organizations who are intoxicating, deceiving our residents and trying to get them to rally" in support of Alsynov. The armed men offer to send Bashkir nationalists to their unit so that they can "re-educate them and teach them to love their homeland."

“The head of the Committee of the Bashkir National Movement Abroad, Ruslan Gabbasov, told Novaya Gazeta Evropa that the Bashkortostan authorities are not panicking from the demands and even threats of armed men. On the contrary, in some cases they are being forced to publicly apologize.

“’Just recently there was a similar story. Now in the Abzelilovsky district of the Republic of Bashkortostan there are unrests of local residents regarding the upcoming development of the Kyrktytau ridge and the construction of a mining and processing plant there. Fighters from this district, fighting in the "SVO", recorded a video message asking not to touch Kyrktytau. A few days passed and a new video message appeared where they apologized and said that they were misled” (https://t.me/rg_bashkort/7256).