The Southern District Military Court commuted the sentence of the Russian soldier and participant in the war against Ukraine, Corporal Aslanbek Baibetiyev. In March, he entered Russia from the side of the "LDNR" with weapons collected on the battlefield, and was accused of illegally crossing the state border, trafficking in weapons and smuggling them. However, when Russia annexed the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, the first and last charges were dropped.
The events that later became the subject of criminal proceedings occurred with Baibetiev in March. He received a severe concussion during the capture of Mariupol and went to Russia to see a doctor. In the "DPR" the serviceman could not do this, so when sent to war, the command ordered the military to leave the documents in the Rostov Novaya Nadezhda. The corporal went to Russia in his own car. Baibetiev crossed the Russian border, but managed to drive only 1,600 meters, after which he was stopped by border guards.
They opened the trunk of a military car and found several weapons inside. According to Baybetiyev, it ended up there by force. These are machine guns that he and his colleagues found on the battlefield, as well as those used by wounded soldiers sent to the hospital. The corporal stressed that the command did not give them instructions on what to do with the weapons found. To collect it, according to the military, "no one demanded, but did not forbid."
Baibetiev was detained and sent to the pre-trial detention center in Novocherkassk, where he spent the next eight months. In December, the garrison court of Rostov-on-Don sentenced him to 3.5 years in prison and a fine of 30,000 rubles. The corporal's defense appealed the verdict to the Southern District Military Court. They ruled that his actions included trafficking in weapons, but he acquired them in an environment that implied “direct contact and proximity with the enemy” in order to “stop the seizure of weapons by the enemy and their use against Baibetiev himself, other military personnel and civilians.” As a result, the charge of smuggling was dropped. With regard to illegal border crossing, the court ruled that after the annexation of four regions of Ukraine, "the scene of the crime began to be located inside the country." Thus, Baibetiev was accused only of illegal arms trafficking and was given only a year and a half in a colony of the settlement.
