Soldiers convicted of more than 100 murders when they returned home

• The number of Russian military personnel convicted of murder increased by 900% in 2023, according to a report.
• Russian soldiers were found guilty of 116 murders in 2023, the Mediazona website reported.
• About 15,000 pardoned prisoners returned to Russia, some of whom committed new crimes.

Russian military personnel were convicted of 116 murders in 2023, Mediazona, an independent Russian media outlet, reported.

That’s an increase of almost 900% from the previous year, when there were 13 convictions. the UK Ministry of Defense published in X.

The data comes from statistics published by the Judicial Department of the Supreme Court of Russia on the work of courts for 2023, Mediazona said.

Conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder and desensitization to battlefield violence often persist long after a military conflict ends. Alcoholism and drug abuse exacerbate these problems, the UK Ministry of Defense said last week.

“The high number of homicides committed by serving Russian soldiers and veterans is likely due in part to chronic war-related mental health problems,” he wrote.

This is compounded by the return of ex-convicts who volunteered to serve in Ukraine to secure their freedom. They were men with a pre-existing propensity for criminality and extreme violence, the UK Ministry of Defense said.

Citing Olga Romanova, director of Russia Behind Bars, The New York Times reported that 15,000 pardoned prisoners had returned to Russian society after serving in penal military units with the Wagner Group and Storm Z.

The New York Times report details cases of high-security prisoners in Russia who were offered a clean slate and freedom by the Wagner mercenary group if they agreed to fight in Ukraine.

A former prisoner turned Wagner Group soldier was sentenced last month by the Kirov court to 22 years in prison for the crimes of murder and rape of an elderly woman after his release, the UK Ministry of Defense said.

A former prisoner and repeat offender, Viktor Savvinov, who was pardoned after serving in Ukraine earlier this year, was reportedly accused of murdering two people upon returning to his home village.

“It’s a story about invisible violence,” Kirill Titaev, a Russian sociologist and criminology expert at Yale, told the Times. “It’s a big problem for society, but they don’t recognize it.”

Last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the risk that pardoned convicts would reoffend after their release “inevitable,” the Times reported.

“But the negative consequences are minimal,” Putin said.

Newsweek reported in March that Russia had recruited so many inmates for the war effort in Ukraine that it was closing some prisons.

The Kremlin is now resorting to recruiting female prisoners to replenish its troops.

According to recent UK estimates, around 450,000 Russian military personnel have been killed or wounded, and tens of thousands more have abandoned their posts since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022.

The Times reported that in the fall of 2023, recruiters toured Russian prisons offering inmates a pardon and $2,000 a month (ten times the national minimum wage) in exchange for front-line roles for a year.