Russian Jailed Five Years for Refusing to Fight in Ukraine

A Russian court sentenced a 24-year-old professional soldier to five years in prison for refusing to fight in Ukraine, officials said Thursday.

The soldier, “not wanting to participate in a specific military operation”, did not report for duty in May 2022, said the press service for courts in the region of Bashkortostan in the Southern Urals.

The statement said law enforcement had traced a man named Marcel Kandarov in September.

Separately, a military tribunal said it sentenced Kandarov to five years in prison for evading military service during mobilization for more than a month.

Russia announced a mobilization of 300,000 men in late September to support Russian troops on the ground in Ukraine.

The announcement triggered an exodus of men from Russia, many of whom fled to neighboring countries including Armenia, Georgia and Kazakhstan.

Critics point out that many conscripted men had hardly any battlefield experience and received little training before being sent to the front.

Separately, a military tribunal in Moscow sentenced a soldier to five years and six months in a penal colony for “thrashing” an officer during an argument, Russian state news agency TASS reported on Wednesday.

TASS said the soldier “expressed his dissatisfaction” with the training of troops mobilized outside Moscow.

While speaking, he blew cigarette smoke in the face of an officer, who responded by pushing him. The private then hugged the officer in the chest.

A video of the incident circulated online showing the soldier complaining of poor training, using obscenities and calling the exercise a “mimicry”.

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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)