Since the beginning of Russia's war against Ukraine, more than 8.000 trials against soldiers have been conducted in Russian courts. In the second year of the war, 2023, their number even increased fivefold compared to 2022. Every month, the courts issue about 700 verdicts, writes the independent Russian internet magazine Mediazona.
By far the most common offense is leaving a military unit without permission (88 percent), and much less common is refusal to carry out orders (six percent) and desertion (three percent).
However, for leaving a military unit without permission, in some cases the courts impose only suspended sentences, which allows the Russian army to send those convicted back to the front. This is what Ivan Chuviljaev from the Russian organization "Walk through the Forest", which supports deserters, told Deutsche Welle (DW).
According to him, about 70 percent of those who turned to this organization for help this year are soldiers under contract.
"Each of them was practically forced in one way or another to sign the contract. There are fewer and fewer mobilized men because many are already dead. Everyone wants to escape because there are only two options: either die, or go to court," explains this activist. for human rights.
Widespread torture
In some cases, deserters are hiding in areas of Ukraine under Russian occupation, says Chuvilyaev. This is dangerous because if they are caught, they face torture such as being forced to sit in a deep pit in the open for a long time and then being transported back to the front.
This torture, he says, is widespread and threatens soldiers when they drink alcohol, argue with superiors and leave the unit without permission.
"But it also happens that people who don't want to fight are put in the basements of abandoned buildings, for example schools or hospitals, and tortured there. After a month in such a 'cell' in inhumane conditions, you agree to everything, no matter what it is ", said Čuviljaev.
Among those who want to escape, there are many wounded
Vladimir (full name known to DW) chose the easiest way to escape in occupied Donetsk - through the hospital. He was drafted into the Russian army in 2022, but refused to sign the contract. Over the course of two years, Vladimir was hospitalized several times due to injuries. Before he was to return to the front, he escaped. However, he was caught and tortured in the basement, which his relatives found out about in 2024.
His wife says he was eventually forced to sign a contract with the Russian military. In April, she says, he was sent to the assault brigade and died soon after.
On the Telegram channel about the mobilization in the so-called "Donetsk People's Republic", another deserter shared his story.
"They took us to a room without a bed or a window. There were people suffering from HIV and hepatitis lying on wet mattresses. We had to sleep on the floor," he writes.
He talks about torture with beatings and electric shocks. Those who agreed to join the assault brigade were promised, he writes, a suspended sentence.
Mihail: "Nothing can evoke the horrors of war"
When the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, Mihail (name changed) was already serving as a conscript in the Russian army.
"We were not told anything, it didn't look like there would be a full-scale invasion. At the time, everyone thought that everything would be over quickly," this young man told DW.
But the Russian invasion was met with fierce resistance in Ukraine. In the summer of 2022, after six months of military service, Mihail decided to sign a contract with the army. He says he liked Social Security - a good salary, a military mortgage and other benefits. And he mentally prepared himself for what was to come by watching war movies and videos of actual battles.
"It seemed to me that I was ready for death, injury and loss. But in reality, nothing can evoke the horrors of war," he says.
But Mihail was first sent to a brigade in Russia itself. There he was promised that he would not be transferred to the combat zone.
"To work in the morning and home in the evening" - that's how he envisioned it. In September 2023, he and some of his colleagues were unexpectedly called to the reconnaissance unit, where they were informed that they would be sent "to perform some tasks".
They were placed in a military vehicle and taken to the Russian region of Belgorod, which borders Ukraine.
"The front near Kharkiv was not yet open," recalls Mihail. He says he was laying mines until spring and crossed the border with Ukraine in June. He was wounded in one attack. In the hospital, he continued, a Russian television program was constantly being broadcast: "There it was said that everything was going well, that Ukrainian soldiers were being captured en masse. Everyone in my room laughed at this nonsense."
According to Mihailov, one of the men who was with him in the hospital regretted his decision to serve in the Russian army. But the high salary - about 200.000 rubles (more than 2.000 euros) - attracted this 40-year-old father of two. In Mihailov's brigade, he says, those who refused orders were also tortured. According to him, they were put in pits, had to carry heavy clothes and equipment for a long time, and weights or truck wheels were tied to their legs.
Few dare to desert
Belief in the Kremlin's promise to quickly capture Kiev has now been replaced by another belief, Mihail says.
"Politicians will sit around the table and make an agreement anyway, but you won't be able to bring back the dead," he says, adding that most soldiers still don't want to flee, especially if they have families.
"If you are 40 years old, have children and an apartment, then going to another country is like death," says Mihail.
Many, he says, are also afraid that they will never see their families again.
He himself has parents in Russia who accepted his decision to flee. In the beginning, he says, they were in favor of the war against Ukraine, but they changed their minds when they learned about the real situation on the front. Mihail, who himself narrowly escaped death several times, remembers how he once stepped away from his comrades to smoke a cigarette, and how they were hit by a shell at that moment.
"Later, I had to collect their body parts in black bags," he says.
This and another similar incident forced him to desert. He joined the "Walk in the Forest" movement, which helped him escape from Russia. It was easier than he thought, he says. Now he is making plans for the future. "I want to go somewhere in Costa Rica and work in the IT industry," he says.
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