Russia\u2019s government has drafted stricter penalties for convicted criminals who desert the military after being recruited from prisons to\u00a0fight in\u00a0Ukraine. The proposed legislation would increase sentences by\u00a0up\u00a0to\u00a0five years for desertion, unauthorized absence, and feigning illness among soldiers recruited from prisons or\u00a0detention centers.<\/p>\n
Yevgeny Smirnov, a\u00a0lawyer with the Department One human rights group, told Agentstvo<\/a> that psychological intimidation is\u00a0likely the purpose of\u00a0the initiative. Courts already consider a\u00a0former prisoner\u2019s previous sentence when sentencing him for desertion-related offenses. Artem Klyga, another human rights attorney, told Agentstvo that many former prisoners attempt to\u00a0desert at\u00a0the front to\u00a0escape combat.<\/p>\n According to\u00a0calculations by\u00a0the news outlet iStories<\/a> from February, Russia\u2019s Defense Ministry may have recruited more than 29,000 prisoners to\u00a0serve at\u00a0the front. The policy has created public safety concerns, as\u00a0released convicts with combat trauma and existing violent tendencies return to\u00a0Russian society, sometimes committing new crimes. In\u00a0September 2025, a\u00a0prisoner who deserted from the front raped and killed<\/a> a\u00a0nine-year-old girl in\u00a0Ukraine\u2019s occupied Donetsk region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russia\u2019s government has drafted stricter penalties for convicted criminals who desert the military after being recruited from prisons…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":449017,"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-449016","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\/115261794155620108","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449016","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=449016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}