‘Mitigating factors’

Russian soldiers found guilty in domestic violence cases are getting off with just small fines

After returning home from the war in Ukraine, many Russian soldiers end up in court on domestic violence charges. However, even if convicted, they usually receive little more than a slap on the wrist. According to a new report from the independent outlet Verstka, Russian courts routinely give combat veterans the minimum sentence for crimes, often letting them off with small fines — equivalent to as little as $55 — for offenses like assault. Meduza shares an English-language summary of Verstka’s findings.

“My husband returned home from the war. But this isn’t my husband, he’s not the man I knew before. Sometimes it feels like he was killed. His body came back, but not his soul. He’s become irritable. Everything angers him. Me, the kids, and everyone around him.”

“[I’m writing] anonymously. I’m sick and tired of hearing: ‘When will they let my husband go?’ Mine’s on his third 30-day leave in eight months, and he drinks like there’s no tomorrow. He’s aggressive.”

Messages like these periodically appear in social media groups for wives, mothers, and daughters of Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine.

More than a million men living in Russia have combatant or veteran’s status, including those who fought in Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Syria. In the last two years, those fighting in Ukraine have joined their ranks.

From the early months of the 2022 invasion, human rights activists predicted that returning soldiers would trigger a surge in violence in the country. But whether this has actually happened is harder to determine. On the one hand, misdemeanor cases for minor assaults actually decreased, falling below 170,000 for the first time in seven years. On the other hand, the number of felony cases for battery has risen significantly: from 3,750 in 2019 to 13,241 in 2023.

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Analysis of court verdicts and decisions across Russia shows that in the two years following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, domestic violence court cases involving combat veterans increased compared to 2020-2021. Moreover, this is by no means an exhaustive tally: Russian courts don’t publish all records, and many judges omit a defendant’s combat status from official paperwork.

In 2020-2021, magistrates reviewed at least 59 misdemeanor assault cases involving veterans. In 2022-2023, such cases nearly doubled to at least 104. District courts handled at least 33 federal assault cases where the defendants were veterans in 2020-2021, and this number almost doubled to at least 64 in 2022-2023.

Although judges seldom specify the combat zone, Verstka discovered that at least 19 men involved in these cases participated in the invasion of Ukraine. Both before and after the full-scale invasion, the vast majority of victims in these cases were women.

Getting off easy

In February 2024, a Russian magistrate’s court in annexed Crimea fined a veteran of the war in Ukraine for assaulting his wife and stepdaughter. The man told the court that his relationship with his wife deteriorated after he returned from the front and was diagnosed with cancer. According to him, his wife didn’t support him sufficiently during his treatment. He claimed that after he decided to leave, his wife attacked him and he pushed her away. “If I’d beaten her, bruises and scratches wouldn’t be the only injuries,” he told the court.

His wife gave a different account. She testified in court that her husband was habitually abusive and, that night, had threatened her with a knifing. The woman also alleged that her husband said he had “killed people like her and her daughter in Ukraine.” Doctors recorded five abrasions and 15 bruises on the woman’s arms, legs, and back. During sentencing, the judge took into account the man’s status as a combat veteran and his illness, and decided to issue only a fine.

In Tatarstan in November 2022, combat veteran Maxim Karasyov spent an entire night drinking. The next morning, he started throwing things at his wife. When she threatened to call the police, he pinned her down and tried to take her phone. She attempted to flee but was forced to return when she couldn’t open the gate. Karasyov, still drunk, then got into his car and drove off, allowing his wife the chance to call the police.

A district court fined Karasyov 7,000 rubles ($77). The judge explained the leniency of the sentence by referencing the defendant’s character, his two children, and the fact that he had fought in Ukraine.

According to Verstka’s findings, judges cited combat participation as a mitigating factor in 87.5 percent of felony battery cases and 61 percent of misdemeanor cases. The most common punishments handed out to combat veterans found guilty of domestic violence are community service, corrective labor, and probation. In all the cases Verstka analyzed, only one veteran was sentenced to imprisonment. Initially, he was given four months of community service for hitting a woman on the head, but due to an unserved sentence for robbery, he was sent to prison for two years.

For misdemeanor offenses, judges most frequently imposed a fine of 5,000 rubles ($55) — the minimum penalty provided by law. However, this money goes to the state, not the victim. In some cases, the court may not impose any penalty at all if it deems the case insignificant or if the defendant and the victim reconcile. In the cases analyzed by Verstka, judges twice terminated proceedings due to the “insignificance” of the case and three times due to reconciliation between the parties.

A question of cultural values

In a 2013 study, Russian psychologist Anna Ermolaeva found that soldiers returning from conflict zones are more prone to suspicion, impulsivity, anxiety, and extreme self-doubt compared to those without combat experience.

At the same time, not all men returning from war resort to violence against women. Stanislav Khotsky, a psychologist specializing in the treatment of people prone to aggression and violence, believes that a person’s prior values are a key factor in how that individual is shaped by their wartime experiences.

“If before gaining combat experience, their worldview included the possibility of using violence against loved ones, the chances of this increase,” he explains. “Why? Because veterans often experience an increase in their own aggression, which, in turn, raises the risk of them inflicting harm.” He asserts that with proper societal support, the risk of domestic violence in families with combat veterans can be mitigated.

Yulia Arnautova, the head of public relations at the advocacy group Nasiliyu.net (No to violence) concurs. “War is one of the most traumatic experiences a person can go through,” she says. “Traumatized people need comprehensive help — both psychological and psychiatric. They need to be made aware that they have a problem and that society is ready to help them.”

However, those working with returning soldiers emphasize that not all combat veterans suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and warn against conflating PTSD with aggression. “The people I worked with who had PTSD weren’t violent toward their loved ones, as far as I know,” says Ilya Gimpel, a former psychologist at the state-funded Defenders of the Fatherland Foundation.

“It’s important to understand that the main factors creating an environment for domestic violence are societal traditions and certain mindsets that justify violence against women by invoking certain cultural norms,” Gimpel added. “And until we have laws that prohibit the promotion and justification of violence, this will continue.”