Russia gives away meat cuffs to mothers of fallen soldiers

It is a tastelessness that can hardly be beaten: in Russia, President Vladimir Putin is currently criticism of President Vladimir Putin. The reason: for the traditionally large -scale World Women’s Day, party officials were photographed as they give the mothers of fallen soldiers gifts – and of all people presented them with a meat grinder.

The kitchen appliance has become a symbol of the senseless, mass dying on the battlefields of Ukraine. Mostly young and often poorly trained and equipped soldiers are burned on the front, often, for a few meters of soil that is taken-in the military jargon “meat grinder tactics”.

But even the dramatic situation after three years of war did not prevent the local politicians of the government party “some Russia” from handing over the kitchen appliance mothers, which stands for the unscrupulous tactics in the campaign against Ukraine.

For example, Maksim Chengayev, Mayor of the small town of Poljarnyje Sori in the Murmansk region, posted pictures of the gifts in various social networks.

The photos were part of the state campaign for the World Women’s Day “Flowers for the Mothers of Helden”. First, the independent Russian exile medium “” reported that women in the pictures are mothers of soldiers who died in Ukraine.

In response to indignant comments, Chengayev justified himself with other posts in which he explained how much the women were happy about the meat wolves. A connection to the actions on the battlefield is “inhuman and provocative”, according to the “”. A meat grinder is not part of a normal gift package. But a woman asked about it and the party members could not have refused this wish, Chengayev continued.

In bizarre videos that were posted shortly thereafter, women speak in the camera with partly petrified expression and explain, for example: “Actually, I wanted to buy a meat grinder myself, but they gave it to me exactly in time. That was exactly what I wanted.”

It is questionable whether such explanations capture the outrage over the cynicism of the gifts. In Russian, too, the word meat grinder has the same double meaning as in German. The former leader of the Wagner mercenary group, Jewgenij Prigoschin, is said to have even distributed a specially invented bravery medal during the difficult fights for the city of Bachmut. For the fight in the “meat grinder Bachmut”.

It is difficult to say how many people have died since Russia has died. Last month, the BBC and the “Mediazona” portal reported at least 91,000 Russian soldiers who were identified and demonstrably died. At the end of 2024, the then US Foreign Minister Lloyd Austin spoke of 700,000 Russian soldiers who were either killed or wounded.

The Ukrainian President Wolodymyr Selenskyj said in February that 46,000 soldiers had fallen on the side of Ukraine and around 380,000 were wounded. Various media reports appreciate the number of Ukrainian deaths at 50,000 to 100,000.