Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine is also a war against Russian citizens, especially Russian women.
By: Elena Tebano – Corriere della Sera
Publication Date:
This is evident in the increase in violent crimes, especially against women and children, committed by former criminals released after agreeing to fight in the Russian army. According to Mediazone (analyzing data from the Supreme Court) and the Moscow Times, the number of soldiers and former soldiers or conscripts convicted of murder increased significantly in 2023: there were 116, compared to 13 in 2022 and 21 in 2021.
Even the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Russian Federation, Mariana Katzarova, has stated that the return of former criminals to Russia who had their criminal records cleared is increasing domestic violence.
The phenomenon first emerged last year among fighters returning from the front. According to Katzarova, about 170,000 criminals convicted of violent crimes were recruited to fight in Ukraine. “Many of them, after returning, have committed new violent crimes, starting with those against women, girls, and children, including sexual violence and murder,” the Special Rapporteur said yesterday at the Human Rights Council in Geneva.
“This has increased violence against women in Russia, which is already at a very high level, with thousands of women dying each year due to domestic violence,” she said. “Russia lacks a clear law criminalizing domestic violence or gender-based violence.”
It confirms that women are always among the first victims of wars, even when those wars are not fought on their territory and even when they do not go into battle.
Russia has suffered huge losses since the beginning of its invasion of Ukraine (70,000 soldiers killed according to a BBC analysis) and needs new recruits to feed the troops on the front lines. In 2022, the authorities mobilized about 300,000 men and began recruiting inmates serving sentences in prisons across the country.
Initially, they were made to fight in the ranks of the Wagner mercenary group, but then – after the rebellion and death of Wagner’s founder Evgeny Prigozhin – they were incorporated into the Russian army.
Last year, the Russian parliament passed a law allowing authorities to release convicted criminals from prisons if they enlist in the army and sign a contract with the Ministry of Defense. Subsequently, as Bbc News Russia revealed, the law was expanded to allow suspects or accused of almost all types of crimes (excluding terrorism and high treason) to enlist to avoid criminal prosecution.
“The procedure for ‘selecting candidates in penitentiaries and pre-trial detention centers’ was established in July 2023 by a joint order of the Russian Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs,” explains the Russian opposition website Meduza.
“The document stipulates that prisons and pre-trial detention centers regularly send lists of their detainees to military recruitment offices, which examine and assess eligible candidates through ‘group and individual informative and screening sessions’.”
According to Meduza, since Russian local authorities have quotas for sending a certain number of people to war, they try to reach them by sending criminals or people arrested awaiting trial.
Initially, criminals had to commit to six months of war to receive clemency. Then they could return to Russia (now the law has been changed to require them to fight until the end of the war). There, many of them have committed new crimes.
Like Igor Sofonov, who, as reported by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, in August of last year, along with an accomplice, killed six people in the village of Derevyannoye. Or former Wagner soldier already convicted of murder Ivan Rossomakhin, who upon returning from the front, raped and killed an elderly woman. The violence of war breeds more violence, even far from the battlefields.
