Vladimir Putin told the angry mothers of men sent to fight in Ukraine that he “feels their pain” during a choreographed sit-down in which he at times appeared emotional.
The Kremlin on Friday released footage of the Russian president meeting with 17 women who had been carefully handpicked for their pro-war and pro-Kremlin views.
“I personally, and the whole leadership of the country, share your pain,” Putin told the assembled group.
His voice appeared to catch with emotion at one point during the discussion.
The Russian wives and mothers of men fighting in Ukraine have become increasingly critical of Putin’s mobilisation order in recent months.
“We understand that nothing can replace the loss of a son, especially for a mother,” Putin said several times during the meeting.
This mobilisation drafted 320,000 men into the army, driving home the reality of war to the Russian public.
Since the end of September, hundreds of mobilised men have been killed and others have complained they were deployed without proper training or equipment and were then abandoned by their officers.
The meeting took place at a formal boardroom table in one of Putin’s residences on the outskirts of Moscow.
Each of the women in attendance was placed in front of a microphone, a cup of tea, a bowl of berries and a small plate of pastries.
Last month, Putin visited a training camp for mobilised men for the first time. After firing a sniper rifle Putin veered off script and embraced a mobilised man, before squeezing his shoulder and wishing him luck.
But ever defensive about the need for war, at the meeting with the women Putin described as “fakes and lies” criticism of the war. He also described their sons as “heroes” fighting a war to defend the motherland.
None of the women in the video criticised the invasion, angering opposition groups.
“The women will only ask the ‘correct’ questions,” said Olga Tsukanova, head of the independent Council of Mothers and Wives.
“Do you have the courage to meet us face-to-face, openly, not with pre-agreed women and mothers who are in your pocket, but with real women?”
Russian soldiers suffering heavy casualties
On Friday, British military intelligence published showed Russian reservists are suffering heavy casualties because they are being forced to dig trench systems while under artillery fire and sent on frontal assaults against fortified Ukrainian positions.
“Mobilised reservists have highly likely experienced particularly heavy casualties after being committed to digging ambitious trench systems while under artillery fire around the Luhansk Oblast town of Svatove,” the Ministry of Defence said in its daily intelligence update.
It added that it was “highly likely ... many are being compelled to serve with serious, chronic health conditions” while others “have been killed in large numbers in frontal assaults into well-established Ukrainian defensive zones around the town of Bakhmut”.
Svatove is a key junction on a supply line for Russian forces in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.
Ukrainian forces have been advancing on it since they pushed the Russians out of the neighbouring Kharkiv region in September.
There has been an uptick in fighting in the east and heavy Russian shelling of Kherson, the southern city it abandoned earlier this month.
Ten people were killed and 54 injured in overnight barrages that targeted residential areas of the city, local authorities said. Footage from the scene of one attack showed shell-shocked and bleeding civilians making their way through the rubble of a ruined building.
The victims included a 62-year-old woman who was killed by a head wound and her husband died later in the hospital from internal bleeding.
James Cleverly, the Foreign Secretary, arrived in Kyiv for an unannounced visit on Friday and said a promised air-defence package, which Britain valued at £50 million ($96m), would help Ukraine defend itself against Russia’s bombardments.
“Words are not enough. Words won’t keep the lights on this winter. Words won’t defend against Russian missiles,” Cleverly said in a tweet about the military aid.
The package includes radar and other technology to counter the Iran-supplied exploding drones that Russia has used against Ukrainian targets, especially the power grid.