Observing today's performance of a few dozen mobilized soldier's relatives in Moscow, poses a question - why were soldier's wives and mothers a lot more loud during the Chechen wars compared to the low level of publicly expressed dissent among their current counterparts?
For one, Russia was a lot freer in the 90s then it is today. By no means a stable democracy, freedom of the press and free expression of thought undoubtedly existed. The public could actually exert pressure on the state and the state felt this pressure.
The second reason is more interesting - money. Mobilized young Russians in the 90s were not handsomely rewarded for their efforts. There was no monetary incentive for them to fight and for their families to keep quiet.
In this war, mobilized impoverished Russians from the provinces receive pay that is on par to an average paycheck of a middle class Muscovite. They have never seen that kind of money in their lives and likely never will again.
In two years of war, Russia has spent roughly 40% of its rainy day fund, which consists of the energy exports profits, accumulated over two decades. It's not cheap to fund an army this size, but Russia has enough capital to go on for a few years.
Social expenses are already cut in this year's budget, which means that the piss-poor Russian mobiks or their families are receiving funds which would've gone to repairing and maintaining infrastructure of their mixed medieval/industrial era towns and villages. It's a trade-off.
Addendum
I'm more interested to see whether the faux opposition presidential candidate Boris Nadezhdin will be officially verified by the electoral commission. The liberal opposition decided to piggyback on him, which has caused a certain level of stress for the authorities.
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