During the fourth presidential term of Vladimir Putin, the Russian authorities repressed at least 116 thousand people. The publication “Project” came to this conclusion after researching criminal and administrative cases filed in Russian courts in the period 2018-2023.
In particular, 5,613 people were prosecuted under the main paragraphs that human rights activists consider repressive (extremism, justification of terrorism, fake news, discrediting the army). If we add to them those who refused to fight in Ukraine, as well as those accused of treason and espionage, the figure will rise to 11,442 people.
This number is greater than the number of repressed people in the post-Stalin USSR, when people were tried under Art. 70 (“Anti-Soviet Agitation”) and 190 (“Dissemination of knowingly false fictions discrediting the Soviet state and social system”). For example, for the six years from 1956 to 1961, 4,883 people were sentenced for them, and from 1962 to 1985 – 3,234.
In Russia, 105 thousand people were fined on administrative charges in 2018-2023, including for public statements and participation in rallies. Approximately the same number (120 thousand people) in 1967–1974 were subjected to the so-called “prevention” – registration and warning by law enforcement agencies.
In their calculations, journalists from “Project” did not take into account those who left Russia, as well as those who, as a result of statements or actions, lost their place of work or study. “It is practically impossible to calculate how many people have gone through this type of repression: if centralized statistics exist, they are only behind the scenes, somewhere in the bowels of the police center “E” or the FSB,” the researchers explain.
If we look at the repression more broadly, then the number of Russians facing them may also include 159 thousand people who were fined for not complying with quarantine measures. This type of punishment is often applied to members of the opposition who have been prosecuted for attempting to organize mass protests.
Another almost 600,000 people were fined for disobeying the demands of the security forces and threatening government officials. The number of such cases increased sharply between 2012 and 2022.
More than 4 thousand Russian soldiers have refused to fight in Ukraine
During the two years of war in Ukraine, more than 4.5 thousand Russian servicemen refused to participate in the military conflict. The publication “Project” came to this conclusion after studying the number of cases in Russian courts under articles of leaving a unit (337), desertion (338), failure to comply with an order (332) and feigning illness (339).
In total, since February 2022, charges have been brought against 4,642 people. The most widespread military repressive article is the arbitrary departure from a unit, which affected 4,373 people in two years. For comparison: for the whole of 2021, the courts considered only 527 cases under this article.
The second most common violation is for failure to comply with an order. In the five years until 2023, only 9 cases were brought to court based on it, but last year it began to be actively used against Russians who refuse to fight in Ukraine. A total of 289 people were charged.
The courts have prosecuted 129 people under the article “desertion” and 31 people for feigning illness and other methods of avoiding service (data for 2023).
At the same time, the courts punish relatively mildly those who openly refuse to fight in Ukraine. Such servicemen receive an average of 2 years and 3 months in a penal colony. Desertion is punished more severely – from 6.5 to 7 years in a colony with a strict regime were given to eight mobilized people who escaped from Luhansk region with received weapons and ammunition.
In 2022, the authorities tightened all the listed members. Before the amendments, the maximum punishment for leaving a unit (Article 337) was up to five years in prison, and then up to 10 years in prison. The same term now threatens for feigning illness (Art. 339) and for failure to comply with an order (Art. 332). The maximum penalty for desertion is 15 years in prison.
Since the beginning of 2024, the number of deserters from the Russian army in Ukraine has increased tenfold compared to January last year, to 284 people per month, according to the Go to the Forest project, which helps Russians avoid involvement in the war.
Among the defectors who contacted human rights defenders, 30% were mobilized, 50% were contract servicemen who signed a contract after the start of the war, and 10% were contract servicemen who joined the army before February 24, 2022. Another 10% are coming from everyone else.
The military declare their desire to desert and ask for help because they have “seen enough horrors in war, they have seen the treatment of people as cannon fodder, they have realized that they are not fighting against ‘fascists’, that what was said on television is a lie”, noted “Go to the forest”.
Requests for help in escaping from the front also come from the wives, relatives and friends of the mobilized, human rights activists say. “Obviously, the increase in the number of deserters is also influenced by the fact that almost a year and a half has passed since the mobilization was announced, there is no rotation in the troops and many, without hoping for anything, choose to desert.
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