Deputies proposed to exempt from criminal liability mobilized and contract soldiers convicted of crimes of minor and medium gravity

A bill has been introduced to the State Duma, according to which mobilized and volunteers convicted of crimes of minor and medium gravity can be exempted from criminal liability if they enlisted during mobilization or in wartime. The document was published on the website of the lower house of parliament.

The innovations will apply to people who have committed crimes of minor or moderate gravity, military personnel who serve during the period of mobilization or in wartime conditions, as well as convicts whose sentences have already entered into force. The law is expected to have retroactive effect.

Deputies proposed to exempt from criminal liability military personnel and convicts who entered military service, whose cases were suspended at the request of the command of a military unit, in two cases. The first of them is from the day of awarding a state award received during military service, the second is from the day of dismissal from military service, with the exception of situations where the serviceman was stripped of his rank or dismissed due to a sentence in the form of a real or suspended sentence.

“The effect of this Federal Law also applies to legal relations related to the military service of persons against whom criminal prosecution was carried out in the territories of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics as well as the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions until September 30, 2022,” the document says.

Back in November last year, Mediazona found out that in September and October 2022, the number of prisoners decreased by 23 thousand people. According to January data from the Federal Penitentiary Service, the number of prisoners in Russian colonies has stopped declining. This happened against the backdrop of the recruitment of prisoners to participate in the war in the ranks of the Wagner PMC. Later it was possible to confirm that at least some of the convicts who went to Ukraine were pardoned by unpublished decrees of Vladimir Putin.