A Russian court said Friday that it had sentenced to 13 years in prison under a “harsh regime” a soldier accused of leaving the military unit where he was stationed to avoid fighting in Ukraine.
In a statement, the military court in the city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, on Sakhalin Island, in the Russian Far East, said the suspect had been found guilty of serious desertion because he was “in a period of military mobilization.”
According to the same source, Maxim Kotchetkov did not report to his unit on May 10 “to avoid fulfilling his military obligations”, to “avoid being sent to the special military operations zone”. [na Ucrânia]’ and ‘indulging in idleness’.
After leaving the unit where he was stationed on Sakhalin Island, he spent two months in the region before being arrested by police on July 9, the court said.
The man was sentenced to nine years in prison for desertion, but the sentence was extended to thirteen years because he was serving a suspended sentence, handed down in February, for leaving the unit without permission.
In recent months, Russian justice has regularly sentenced soldiers accused of desertion to prison.
In September 2022, the country’s president, Vladimir Putin, ordered a military mobilization in response to Moscow’s setbacks on the Ukrainian front, causing hundreds of thousands of men to abandon Russia for fear of conscription.
Source: DN
