A Pskov contract soldier was convicted of refusing to fight in Ukraine - he was kept in service with 10 percent of his salary withheld

The Pskov Garrison Military Court in July sentenced contract soldier Ilya Kononov, accused of leaving his unit without permission (Part 3 of Article 337 of the Criminal Code), the Pskov Province noted . As the publication clarifies, Kononov took part in a “special military operation.” After disappearing from a military unit, he was found at his place of residence - told about this at the trial. one of the witnesses, the head of a department at the military commandant’s office,

Judging by the case file on the court website, Kononov was sentenced on July 21. As a punishment, the court chose for him a restriction on military service for a period of one year with the deduction of 10 percent of his salary to the state income. The serviceman’s lawyer, Alexei Zvyagin, did not explain to Mediazona the details of the court’s decision, citing a business trip abroad.

The punishment in the form of a restriction on military service does not imply early dismissal from it and is “something like correctional labor for military personnel”, 10-20 percent of their salaries will be withheld, an anonymous specialist from a coalition of lawyers and experts from Russian human rights organizations explains to Mediazona for conscious refusal of military service.

A convicted serviceman will undergo correctional labor during military service, but will not be able to leave it for a year. In this case, a suspended sentence for a similar violation is in some cases even better for those who left the military unit, the expert says, since after such a sentence, as a rule, they are fired. In addition, they may try to send a soldier punished in this way to war again.

“And it will be even more difficult to achieve early dismissal,” explains the human rights activist. “However, if a serviceman, due to his conscience, does not agree to fight, then he can refuse to participate in the SVO, not report to the train, not come to duty on these days - disciplinary liability is provided for this, but not criminal.”

In total, from March to early September, the Pskov garrison military court received 12 criminal cases for unauthorized abandonment of a military unit (337 Criminal Code), nine of which resulted in a verdict. For example, the defendant contract soldier Stoletov was given a one-year suspended sentence in August for not appearing at a military unit for a month and three days (Part 4 of Article 337). For the entire 2021, there were only three cases under a similar article in the Pskov garrison military court .