In March, Russian courts handed down 34 sentences per day for AWOL

In March 2024, Russian military courts issued 684 sentences in cases of unauthorized abandonment of a unit (Article 337 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). This is reported by Mediazona, which studied the files of criminal cases.

Thus, the courts issued approximately 34 sentences under this article every working day.

The number of criminal cases of AWOL began to increase after Vladimir Putin announced mobilization in September 2022. The same decree actually prohibited leaving the army - all contracts with the Ministry of Defense essentially became indefinite. At the same time, the State Duma adopted amendments to the Criminal Code, which introduced liability for committing a crime during mobilization or martial law.

In February 2024, the courts received 718 cases of AWOL, decisions were made on 583. In addition, in less than two weeks of April, almost 300 sentences were issued under this article.

In total, since the beginning of 2024, military courts have received about 2.3 thousand cases of escape from service, and since the beginning of mobilization - almost 7.4 thousand. Most of them are in the Moscow (496 cases), Sverdlovsk (258) and Orenburg (255) regions.

The tendency to assign suspended sentences to those accused under the AWOL article continues. Mediazona notes that this is being done so that soldiers can be sent to war. Of the nearly 700 verdicts for March this year, only 44 decisions have been published. In 32 cases, judges gave the defendants suspended sentences.

Since the beginning of mobilization, 254 cases have been referred to the courts under the article on desertion (338 of the Criminal Code). There were 536 cases under the more lenient article on failure to comply with an order.

• In September 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin, shortly after the announcement of mobilization, signed a law that, in particular, toughened the punishment for unauthorized abandonment of a unit during a period of mobilization or martial law. Now this carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison.