Russian court sentences contract soldier who abandoned post during ‘special military operation’ to ‘community service for soldiers’

In July, a Pskov garrison military court issued a verdict on the case of soldier Kononov, accused of unauthorised abandonment of a military unit for more than ten days, reports local paper Pskov Gubernia.

Kononov is a contract serviceman. According to court documents, he left the military unit for a period of “more than ten days but less than a month”. Chief of a military commandant office stated that the serviceman Kononov had been found at the place of residence.

The judge sentenced Kononov to a year of restrictions in his military service, with 10% of his monetary allowance being taken into state revenue. The verdict was made taking into account the fact that Kononov had “taken part in completing tasks during the special military operation”, according to the case materials.

The punishment imposed does not mean that Kononov will be let go, it resembles “something like community service for soldiers”, an anonymous specialist for the coalition of lawyers and experts of Russian human rights defending organisations told outlet Mediazona.

In total, 14 cases on abandoning post were filed in the Pskov garrison military court in 2022 so far, 11 of them have already received a judgement. In 2021, only three cases under this article were tried in the same court.