A video surfaced online on Saturday featuring an elderly Russian woman expressing frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s leadership and sharing her experience of poverty.
As the Russia-Ukraine war approaches its two-year anniversary next month, the ongoing conflict continues to impact millions of lives, particularly in terms of livelihoods. According to Business Insider, Russia is allocating more resources to its war effort in Ukraine, affecting the overall economy, as noted by Alexandra Prokopenko, a former Russian central bank official.
Furthermore, Reuters reports that defense spending will make up almost one-third of Russia’s total 2024 budget expenditure, while social spending, including salaries, pensions, and benefits, will constitute about one-fifth of the budget.
On Saturday, Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to the minister of internal affairs of Ukraine, shared a video on X (formerly Twitter) featuring an elderly Russian woman expressing her frustrations with Putin amid the ongoing war.
In the video, the elderly woman stated, “I’d tell him to go f*** himself! Yes, with the situation we’re in now, there’s nothing else to do, nothing. You see?” When asked how she would change the current situation if she were president, she replied, “I don’t know how I would change it. It’s hard to talk about anything now. It’s hard when everything’s at zero.”
She emphasized her age, saying, “I’m 82. That’s how much I’ve been through. I’ve been through that war, I know how hungry I was. I’m just as hungry now. There was nothing then. We fed each other, helped each other, and gave each other food. Now there is plenty [of food in the stores] there, and we are all hungry.”
Newsweek reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry and the Russian Foreign Ministry for comment via email.
The woman’s comments followed Putin’s recent order to nationalize an ammunition plant in Moscow after a mechanical failure left tens of thousands of Muscovites without heat and water in freezing temperatures. Some residents filmed video appeals, expressing their struggles with subzero temperatures and resorting to unconventional methods to keep warm.
In addition to financial concerns and poverty, reports emerged in November 2022 of Russian troops complaining about not receiving payments for their efforts on the battlefield in Ukraine.
