The leaders are the Kostroma Region, Moscow and the Moscow Region, and the Rostov Region. Source: Vyorstka
Since the outset of the war in Ukraine, Russian servicemen returning from the front have killed 242 people and seriously injured another 227, according to a count made by the online news outlet Vyorstka based on court records and media reports. This brings the total number of victims to at least 469. The victims of these crimes resided in eighty different Russian regions.
A total of 350 criminal cases have been launched in connexion with these incidents. Of these, 114 cases, involving 139 victims, have resulted in charges of murder (per Article 105 of the Criminal Code). Eighty-five Russians were victims of seventy-five former inmates recruited for the war from penal colonies, while another fifty-four died at the hands of thirty-nine [ordinary] servicemen.
Other fatal crimes include sixty-four cases of grievous bodily harm (per Article 111 of the Criminal Code; sixty-four fatalities), twenty traffic violations (per Article 264 of the Criminal Code; thirty-one fatalities), five cases of involuntary manslaughter (per Article 109 of the Criminal Code; five fatalities), two cases of inducement to use drugs (per Article 230 of the Criminal Code; two underage victims) and one case of murder caused by excessive self-defense (per Article 108 of the Criminal Code).
Most of the offenses were committed by 246 former prisoners recruited to the front. The victims were also more often women. Another 180 defendants were ordinary servicemen. Of the 125 pardoned and paroled war veterans who murdered or caused injuries resulting in death, fifty-four had previous convictions for similar offenses, while another three had been convicted of rape.
The majority of the crimes were domestic crimes and occurred due to alcohol consumption. The victims of the Ukraine war veterans are more often people from their surroundings: relatives, neighbors, and acquaintances. The most “widespread” crime was voluntary grievous bodily harm. The journalists at Vyorstka tallied at least 220 such crimes, which resulted in sixty-four deaths and 158 injuries, including disabilities. The sentences in such cases for soldiers recruited in the penal colonies have ranged from four to twelve years in a maximum security penal colony, and from four to ten years in a maximum security penal colony for the other soldiers.
A further sixty-six victims who survived were severely injured due to attempted murder, excessive self-defense, attempted involuntary manslaughter, and traffic violations by war veterans.
One third of all the victims have been women, including minors: thirty-two out of eighty-five (thirty eight percent) were killed by ex-prisoners, and seventeen out of fifty-five (thirty-one percent) were killed by military personnel. Five of the seventeen women killed in the fire at the Kostroma nightclub Polygon were not intentional but accidental victims of serviceman Stanislav Ionkin, who set the blaze.
The sentences of the ex-convicts have ranged from six to fourteen years in a maximum security penal colony, while the sentences for the ordinary military men range from seven to ten years in maximum security. Some “veterans of the SMO” have been handed severe sentences, including life imprisonment. For example, ex-prisoner Viktor Budin was sentenced to nineteen years in a maximum security facility for murdering two retired neighbors, while the first life sentence was given to Grigory Starikov, who killed three acquaintances.
Out of 292 sentences made public, judges did not consider involvement in the war a mitigating circumstance in only fifteen percent of cases. It was even mentioned by the judge who sentenced Starikov. In addition, “state honors,” “involvement in the activities of the RF Armed Forces,” and “unlawful behavior on the part of the victims” were taken into account in some cases. For example, ex-servicemen have usually received minimum or suspended sentences for negligent homicide or in cases where the victims survived.
On the other hand, courts most often ignored alcohol as an aggravating circumstance in their verdicts. For both pardoned convicts and military personnel, it was taken into account in less than a third of the cases.
Source: “Nearly 250 people have been killed by military personnel returning from Ukraine,” Moscow Times Russian Service, 26 September 2024. Translated by the Russian Reader
