In 2023, a year after the announcement of “partial mobilization”, a collective movement of soldiers’ wives began openly criticizing the Russian state and army as well as demanding the return of their mobilized husbands. More recently, the incursion of Ukrainian troops into Russian territory has sparked a new wave of public dissatisfaction, with drafted soldiers being sent to the front lines. Will the continuation of the war and the increased involvement of drafted soldiers further radicalize their relatives and lead to public unrest in Russia? This talk features new research by the Public Sociology Laboratory about the relatives and wives of drafted, mobilized, professional soldiers, and military volunteers. It will analyze the dynamics of collective action and how attitudes toward the state have developed among those closest to Russian soldiers sent off to war.

Natalia Savelyeva is a sociologist and lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she also conducts research at the Public Sociology Laboratory. She earned her PhD in Social Sciences from the Institute of Sociology at the Russian Academy of Sciences. Her research primarily investigates the violent conflict that began in Ukraine in 2014 and examines Russian society's response to the ongoing war. She is a co-author of the collective monograph Politics of Apoliticals (2015, in Russian) and has contributed to three analytical reports published by the Public Sociology Laboratory, which focus on how Russians perceive the conflict in Ukraine.