More than 5,000 cases of military escapes were filed in Russian courts per hour

More than five thousand cases of arbitrary desertion of military units were submitted to Russian courts in the past year. This is reported by “Mediazon”, which analyzed court data as of December 29.

As journalists specify, of all 5,024 cases under this article, the absolute majority – 5,006 – relate to desertion from service, committed after the start of mobilization in September 2022, when the criminal penalty was tightened. In 2023, 148 cases were transferred to the courts under the more severe article on desertion. Another 421 cases brought to the court in 2023 concern failure to comply with an order.

Analysts of “Mediazony” claim that such a number of cases of absconding from the service has become a historical record. In 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, only 1,001 cases were brought to court, and 615 cases an hour before that.

Journalists also point out that a significant part of the sentences already handed down in such cases are conditional, so that the soldier could be sent back to the front.

Not only servicemen of the active army can be accused of involuntary desertion. On December 27, it became known that criminal cases under this article were initiated against the Russian fencing athletes, the spouses of Sergey and Violetta Byda, who moved to the USA in the summer. The reason for the instigation of cases in relation to this article was the fact that in Russia they stood for the Dynamo and CSKA clubs, whose members are equated to military personnel and employees of the security forces with which the clubs are affiliated.