Putin seems to be losing everywhere on the battlefields of Ukraine and now has a new problem that won’t be easy to solve – provided of course that reports are accurate:
The wives of Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine showed up at the border and demanded to take their husbands home, the independent Russian news outlet The Insider reported.
A group of around 20 relatives traveled to a military base in the Russian town of Valuiki on Wednesday night, the outlet reported. Valuiki is around 30 miles (50km) from Kharkiv Oblast in Ukraine.
The group, which mostly consisted of women, called for their husbands to be taken out of Ukraine, claiming they had been wounded fighting on the frontline, The Insider said. (The Insider is a Russian news outlet and has no affiliation with Insider.)
“I’m ready to tear them apart,” one of the women told officials at the military base, per The Insider. “They have to do something, they have to make a decision, they have to get them out of there.”
“We want them to be taken away from there because there are many wounded,” she added.
Another relative said that if officials were unable to help them, she will go to the front herself to rescue the soldiers, The Insider reported, citing a separate report published on the Telegram channel of the independent Russian news outlet Verstka.
It is unclear whether the women received the answers they were looking for. Verstka reported that officials were helping the women track down their husbands.
Insider was unable to independently verify these reports.
The report comes after Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu called on his troops to withdraw from Kherson, the first major city and the only regional capital in Ukraine captured by Russia since the beginning of its invasion in February.
That announcement marked one of the most significant setbacks for Russia so far in its war in Ukraine.
Top US general Mark Milley estimated Wednesday that more than 100,000 Russian soldiers were “killed and wounded” since Russia invaded Ukraine, Reuters reported.
It’s unclear where he received the figures. Reuters and Insider did not independently verify the numbers.
