Ida Kuklina is a co-founder of the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia (CSMR) and is its vice-president. The Committee was founded in 1989 by 300 soldiers' mothers during perestroika, a period of democratization in the then Soviet Union. The mothers wanted to protect their sons against human rights violations in the Russian army, in which every year about 5,000 soldiers died from maltreatment, hunger, sickness, or through accidents and suicide. For the most part, the women work on a volunteer basis, processing about 7,000 complaints yearly - in Moscow alone - from soldiers and their parents. As one of the most important forces in the Russian peace movement, CSMR was actively committed to ending the war in Chechnya and to protecting deserters who refused to take part in the war for reasons of conscience. In numerous statement and petitions they demanded the end of the war, the pullback of Russian troops out of Chechnya, and the immediate begin of peace negotiations. In 1995, hundreds of mothers traveled into the battle zone to bring their sons home from war. From the very beginning, they worked together closely with Chechen women in carrying out their activities.

In 2004, the organization received the Aachen Peace Prize, and, in 2000, the Human Rights Award of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. In 1995, it was awarded the Sean MacBride Peace Prize.