A military court in the Moscow region sentenced eight mobilized to terms of up to seven years in prison in the case of desertion for escaping with weapons from the territory of the Luhansk region of Ukraine. Mediazonawrites about this with reference to the lawyer of the defendants.
Here are the terms they received:
- junior sergeant Evgeny Kravchenko – 7 years in prison
- private Alexander Bogachenok – 7 years in prison
- sailor Alexander Babeshko – 6 years in prison
- Private Nikolai Kolmachev – 6 years in prison
- private Dmitry Medvedev – 6 and a half years in prison
- private Alexander Eliseev – 6 and a half years in prison
- Private Igor Medvedev – 6 and a half years in prison
- Private Denis Balakhin – 6 and a half years in prison
All of them were found guilty of desertion committed by an organized group (part 3 of article 338 of the Criminal Code) and failure to comply with an order (part 2.2 of article 332 of the Criminal Code) during the period of mobilization or armed conflict.
The mobilized said that they were sent to the war zone in September 2022, and in November they were transferred to a field camp between the villages of Gladkovo and Malaya Aleksandrovka in the Luhansk region. There they were forced to build dugouts, without providing food and quality uniforms. In winter, the soldiers were ordered to go to the front lines, but they decided to escape from the camp "for the sake of life and health."
As a result, the mobilized bought food and civilian clothes and ordered two taxis to Lipetsk. They spent the night there, and then on minibuses they got to Podolsk, where they voluntarily came to the police and handed over their weapons.
In March, it was reported that more than 500 cases were filed in Russian courts against servicemen who refuse to follow orders after mobilization has begun.