Russian military personnel have been found guilty of 116 murders in 2023, Mediazona, a local news site, reported.
The data comes from statistics published by the Judicial Department of the Supreme Court on the work of the courts for 2023, Mediazona reported.
Conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and desensitization to violence, which arise on the battlefield, often persist long after the conflict ends. Alcohol and drug abuse are exacerbating these problems, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said last week.
“The high number of homicides carried out by active and veteran Russian soldiers is likely due in part to chronic war-related mental health problems,” he writes.
Added to this is the return to civilian life of former detainees who had volunteered to serve in Ukraine and ensure their freedom. They were men with a pre-existing propensity for criminality and extreme violence, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said.
Citing Olga Romanova, the director of Russia Behind Bars, the New York Times reported that 15,000 pardoned prisoners had returned to Russian society after serving in criminal military units, such as the Wagner Group and Storm Z.
Members of the Wagner Group look on from a military vehicle in Rostov-on-Don, June 24, 2023. ROMAN ROMOKHOV/AFP via Getty Images
The New York Times reports detailed cases of high-security prisoners in Russia being offered a clean slate and freedom by the Wagner mercenary group if they agree to fight in Ukraine.
A former Wagner prisoner-soldier was sentenced by the Kirov court on April 24, 2024 to 22 years in prison for the crimes of murder and rape of an elderly woman after his release, the British Ministry of Defense said.
When former prisoner Viktor Savvinov was pardoned after serving in Ukraine earlier this year, he drunkenly murdered two people upon returning to his home village.
“It’s a story of invisible violence,” Kirill Titaev, a Russian sociologist and criminology expert at Yale, told the Times. “It’s a big problem for society, but they don’t recognize it.”
Last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the risk of pardoned convicts reoffending after their release “inevitable,” according to the Times.
“But the negative consequences are minimal,” Putin said.
In March, it was reported that Russia had exploited so many detainees to fuel its war effort in Ukraine that it was closing some prisons.
The Kremlin is now resorting to recruiting convicted women to replenish its troops.
According to recent UK estimates, around 450,000 Russian servicemen have been killed or injured, and tens of thousands more have deserted their posts since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
The New York Times reported that in the fall of 2023, recruiters visited Russian prisons offering inmates a pardon and $2,000 a month – 10 times the national minimum wage – in exchange for a year of service in First line.
businessinsider
