Raids, Politically Motivated Cases, and Procedural Violations: How the Draft Became a Tool of Repression

Law Enforcement Exploits Draft to Target Navalny Supporters

On rare occasions, forced draft has served as a means of suppressing political opposition.

On the evening of 23 December 2019, security forces searched the home of Ruslan Shaveddinov, a supporter of Alexei Navalny and an employee of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF). He was forcibly taken to the Investigative Committee for questioning. The next day, it became known that he had been deployed to a military unit on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. The unit was located in a restricted area beyond the Arctic Circle, which prevented lawyers from gaining access to Shaveddinov. Human rights defenders and ACF lawyers declared the process unlawful.

During his military service, Shaveddinov was quartered with four other servicemen in an isolated building with no access to communication. The only nearby structure was a helicopter landing pad. The soldiers had to walk two kilometers (1.2 miles) to collect water from a river, and food supplies were delivered once a month by helicopter. Shaveddinov was sent to this remote post by direct order of Major General Igor Churkin, Deputy Commander of Russia’s 45th Air and Air Defence Army.

«Everyone in command here knows this is essentially exile, ” Shaveddinov said.

Several years before Shaveddinov’s case, the authorities used compulsory military service to exert pressure on another supporter of Alexei Navalny, ACF director Ivan Zhdanov. In April 2016, a criminal case was initiated against the politician for draft evasion (Article 328 part 1 of the Criminal Code), just asZhdanov was running for a seat on the municipal council in Barvikha (a prestigious residential area in the Western suburbs of Moscow, where many Russian government officials and successful business people reside in the gated communities). At the time, Zhdanov was 27 years old (the upper age limit for conscription). According to him, the military recruitment service «had not bothered» him while he had been a student and doctoral researcher.

Over the course of that year, the coordinators of Navalny headquarters in several Russian cities, namely, Kazan — Oleg Yemelyanov, Volgograd — Yevgeny Kochegin, and Kurgan (Southern Urals) — Alexey Schwartz, became defendants in similar criminal cases. Law enforcement officers also conducted a preliminary investigation under the same article against Alexander Belyaev, the former head of Navalny headquarters in Chelyabinsk (Southern Urals).

Activists considered their persecution politically motivated. For example, Yevgeny Kochegin linked it to his efforts to expose electoral fraud during the State Duma elections in the autumn of 2021.

Navalny supporters who were accused of draft evasion