A Russian court sentenced a 24-year-old professional soldier to five years in prison for refusing to fight in Ukraine, officials said on Thursday.
Moscow: A Russian court sentenced a 24-year-old professional soldier to five years in prison for refusing to fight in Ukraine, officials said on Thursday.
The soldier skipped out on reporting for duty in May 2022 because he “didn’t want to take part in a specific military operation,” according to the press service for courts in the region of Bashkortostan in the southern Urals.
The statement also said that Marsel Kandarov was found by law enforcement in September.
Separately, a military tribunal announced that it had sentenced Kandarov to five years in prison for avoiding military service for more than a month during mobilisation.
In late September, Russia made the announcement that it would mobilise 300,000 men to support its combat forces in Ukraine.
The statement caused a mass exodus of men from Russia, with many heading to nearby nations like Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Georgia.
According to critics, many of the mobilised troops had little training before being deployed to the front.
Separately, the Russian state news service TASS reported on Wednesday that a military court in Moscow had sentenced a soldier to five years and six months in a penal colony for “beating” an officer during an argument.
According to TASS, the soldier “expressed his unhappiness” with how mobilised service members are being trained outside of Moscow.
He spoke while blowing smoke from his cigarette into the face of an officer, who reacted by pushing him away. The officer was then struck in the chest by the private.
A video of the incident shared online showed the soldier complaining of poor training, using obscenities, and calling the drills “imitation.”
