{"id":12100,"date":"2025-04-11T23:20:15","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T23:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/12100\/"},"modified":"2025-04-11T23:20:15","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T23:20:15","slug":"prosecutors-seek-16-year-sentence-in-russias-first-ever-case-against-soldier-for-voluntary-surrender-to-ukrainian-forces-meduza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/12100\/","title":{"rendered":"Prosecutors seek 16-year sentence in Russia\u2019s first-ever case against soldier for \u2018voluntary\u2019 surrender to Ukrainian forces \u2014 Meduza"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"SimpleBlock-module_p__7aRnT \">State prosecutors have asked a military court in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk to sentence Russian serviceman Roman Ivanishin to 16 years in prison for voluntarily surrendering to Ukrainian troops. According to the newspaper <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kommersant.ru\/doc\/7297781\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kommersant<\/a>, Roman Ivanishin is the first Russian soldier to face criminal prosecution for this offense since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He\u2019s also charged with desertion and attempted voluntary surrender on at least one other occasion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"SimpleBlock-module_p__7aRnT \">Ivanishin worked as a mining foreman on Sakhalin Island before he was drafted into Russia\u2019s military. After being deployed to Ukraine\u2019s Donetsk region, Ivanishin was captured and appeared in a video online in June 2023, where he denounced Russia\u2019s invasion and called on Russian soldiers to desert. In January 2024, Ivanishin was among a group of 248 Russian soldiers exchanged for captured Ukrainian troops.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"SimpleBlock-module_p__7aRnT \">The authorities opened a criminal case against Ivanishin when he returned to Russia. He maintains his innocence, and his lawyers say prosecutors have presented no evidence that he broke the law.<\/p>\n<p class=\"SimpleBlock-module_context_p__Mdu1R \">In April 2024, journalists at <a href=\"https:\/\/meduza.io\/news\/2024\/04\/11\/mediazona-v-rossii-voennogo-vpervye-obvinili-po-statie-o-dobrovolnoy-sdache-v-plen-vvedennoy-posle-nachala-mobilizatsii\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mediazona<\/a> reported a case file against a soldier accused of voluntary surrender. The case was filed at a lower level of the same military court now hearing Roman Ivanishin\u2019s prosecution. Mediazona described the charges as Russia\u2019s first known enforcement of a criminal statute amendment introduced in September 2022 that raised the penalties for surrendering \u201cvoluntarily\u201d to enemy forces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"State prosecutors have asked a military court in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk to sentence Russian serviceman Roman Ivanishin to 16 years&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[332,7888,7883,7886,7875,7868,7880,7870,7881,7887,7876,7864,7871,7865,7873,7874,7866,7869,7867,7885,7879,7872,7884,7882,7878,7877],"class_list":{"0":"post-12100","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-russia","9":"tag-7888","10":"tag-7883","11":"tag-7886","12":"tag-7875","13":"tag-7868","14":"tag-7880","15":"tag-7870","16":"tag-7881","17":"tag-7887","18":"tag-7876","19":"tag-7864","20":"tag-7871","21":"tag-7865","22":"tag-7873","23":"tag-7874","24":"tag-7866","25":"tag-7869","26":"tag-7867","27":"tag-7885","28":"tag-7879","29":"tag-7872","30":"tag-7884","31":"tag-7882","32":"tag-7878","33":"tag-7877"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114321897888100391","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}