“I don’t agree to give my children to anyone.” Single fathers have to fight to get out of the service and be able to raise their children

The military cannot get a discharge, even if the children have no other relatives, and they are placed in orphanages

Men who signed a contract for military service and then became single fathers are not discharged from service. According to the law, they must be fired, but in practice they refuse, they “lose” documents, and play for time - just so as not to lose a combat unit at the front. Even appeals to the prosecutor's office and the court do not always help. “Layout” tells how the state, despite promoting traditional family values , in reality destroys families.

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On January 2, 2025, 33-year-old Viktor Ovchinnikov took four daughters from an orphanage. Angelina, Alexandra, Maria and Daria were then 4, 9, 11 and 14 years old. The girls have lived in an orphanage since 2023 - Victor was convicted of several criminal cases at once: for beatings, false denunciation and theft, and their mother was deprived of parental rights several years earlier. The Ovchinnikovs have no other relatives who could take the girls.

On November 7, 2024, Victor enlisted in contract service directly from the colony, two weeks later he was wounded, and after treatment in the hospital he received leave and in January came home to the city of Uyar, Krasnoyarsk Territory. Then he took his daughters from the orphanage.

Victor sent the command a message about his dismissal via Telegram, along with a certificate about hepatitis C having just been diagnosed, due to which he should be fired for health reasons, and with documents stating that he is the only parent of minor children - this is the second reason for dismissal from the contract, for family reasons.

Two and a half months later, Ovchinnikov was detained by military police and taken to a military unit. The girls were sent to an orphanage for the second time.

“I’m at a loss as to what I should do”

By law, single fathers should be dismissed from contract service without any problems, but in practice this is difficult to achieve. Not all men who signed a contract know their rights and understand where to find instructions and sample resignation letters. Here are the messages you can find in telegram chats dedicated to “SVO”: i .

"Hello!!! Tell me, I have this problem: the mother of my child wants to give up parental rights to the child, and I’m at my wit’s end, what should I do?”

“Hello, I’m a military man and I’m the only parent of a child, can I write to the SVO on this issue or not, my contract ended a long time ago”

“Hello, I need help, I left as a volunteer through a mine of defense, now I’m a single father (the child’s mother is still limited in her rights, she doesn’t want to be restored) and I can’t quit, and they keep calling me and asking me to fly in to quit, but I have neither the funds nor the trust, what should I do?”

Presidential Decree No. 580 states that military personnel who “have dependent and are raising minor children (child) without a mother” may resign. According to the rules, a report on dismissal must be submitted to the command of the military unit. According to Vorstka’s sources, the documents are then reviewed by the certification commission. If she makes a positive decision, the dismissal must also be approved by the Ministry of Defense.

According to single fathers with whom Vorstka spoke, commanders may initially simply not accept the report, refusing to dismiss them verbally. If the documents are nevertheless accepted, they may be “lost”, and the military will continue to serve while their children temporarily live with relatives or are placed in orphanages. It takes a lot of persistence to finally achieve dismissal and the right to raise your children. It turns out that this does not happen to everyone.

Those who enlist the help of lawyers have a better chance, but not all military personnel have an understanding of where to find a suitable specialist and the money to pay for him. Viktor Ovchinnikov acted independently: he sent his resignation report only via messenger, without duplicating it in printed form by mail. After he failed to return from leave to the military unit, he was declared to have left the unit without permission - so the military police returned him to the front.

But even when single fathers use legal assistance and submit documents in accordance with all the rules, this does not guarantee their dismissal.

So at the end of October 2024, 29-year-old Maxim Veremeev , after the sudden death of his wife, was left as the only parent for his one-year-old son. At that moment, Maxim, who signed the contract two months earlier from the colony, was being treated in the hospital. According to him, he immediately turned to the commanders and was allowed to fly to the child.

“They let me go on leave in words, they didn’t do any paperwork, then in the end they wrote that they allegedly disappeared from the hospital,” says Maxim. In early November, already from home, having received the death certificate of his wife, with the help of a lawyer, he drew up a report on dismissal and sent it by mail.

A couple of weeks later he received a written refusal to resign , but Maxim still stayed at home with the child. In December 2024, a criminal case was opened against him for leaving his unit without permission.

“When I found out that a case had been opened against me, that they were looking for me, I went to the garrison [in my city] and explained the situation, that I was not running, I had a child in my arms, the commandant’s office let me go,” says Veremeev. According to him, the criminal case against him for leaving his unit without permission was “removed”, and he sent another set of documents for dismissal.

In May, Maxim flew with his son, who then had no one to leave with, to his military unit in the Altai Territory. "I went to see a lawyer, she found out my last name and said: 'Give up the child! You're on the next flight to the location of the SVO!' I say: “I will not refuse anyone!” I called my grandmother, she came and took my son. Since then we’ve been writing and writing [dismissal reports and complaints],” says Maxim. “We wrote to all authorities. There are continuous unsubscribes everywhere. Everything is sent back to this military unit,” says Maxim’s mother.

While the documents for dismissal were being considered, he was left to serve in a unit on Russian territory. Maxim’s mother cannot look after her grandson all the time - she recently underwent heart surgery, and Veremeev’s new common-law wife periodically lived with the child.

In August, the certification commission nevertheless decided to dismiss Maxim i , the documents were sent further to the authorities. Despite this, a month later he was sent to the combat zone.

“The command changed, they said no one else would be left in the unit [on Russian territory]. We live in the forest, three kilometers from here - the line of combat contact is narrower,” says Maxim in the video he sent to Vorstka in mid-October.

His son turned two years old in August; according to Maxim, he now lives with a nanny.

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“If it weren’t for my appeal and connections, no one would have returned him!”

One of the ways, if not to achieve dismissal, then at least to protect yourself from being sent to a combat zone, is to attract attention through the media and publish video messages.

At the end of April 2025, the sister of a serviceman from Ussuriysk, Margarita Kravtsova, recorded a video that was published on the Telegram channel of a local charitable organization. Margarita said that her 29-year-old brother Vitaly Morozov became a single father of an eight-year-old son during military service - after the death of his wife from a stroke.

Despite attempts to quit, according to Margarita, Vitaly was first left in a military unit in his hometown to perform the duties of a “clerk,” then they extorted bribes for permission to leave the unit’s territory to go home to his son, and then one day they put him on board and sent him to the combat zone.

“My nephew is with his grandfather, the child attends school and is really waiting for his father’s call. But we don’t know how to explain to him that dad was taken to “SVO” and it is unknown when he will get in touch. Please help return the child’s father,” said Margarita.

A few hours later, she published a second video message - with gratitude and words that they had promised to return her brother.

However, from the end of April until mid-October, Vitaly Morozov was still not fired. He is still in the military unit in Ussuriysk, he only recently passed the military medical commission and is waiting for his discharge documents to pass through all authorities. Victor's son lives with his grandmother.

“If it weren’t for my appeal and connections, no one would have returned him!” - says Margarita. Even such a limited effect—not dismissal, but at least a return to Russian territory—cannot always be achieved through publicity.

When Viktor Ovchinnikov was taken away by the military police and his daughters were sent to an orphanage, he posted a video message to Vladimir Putin asking for help with his dismissal on his VKontakte page. Several telegram channels published news about him, but this did not help him at all. Victor was returned to the combat zone. According to him, he was on the line of combat contact, digging dugouts and performing the tasks of an instructor.

“The main thing is to maintain order and keep an eye on everything, walk around and get things done.”

“To force the command to comply with existing standards, serious efforts must be made. The army is a big mess,” says the director of the human rights group “Citizen. Army. Law" Sergei Krivenko.

If the command does not accept the report, you can send the documents in a valuable letter with an inventory by mail, advises the human rights project “Call to Conscience.” If dismissal is refused in writing, you can complain to the military prosecutor's office and appeal this decision in the garrison court. It is difficult for military personnel to understand all these details on their own, especially if they are in a combat zone. At the same time, even with complaints to the prosecutor’s office and appeals to the court, the dismissal process can be very delayed.

The wife of Ivan Kazakov, who was mobilized in 2022 , was diagnosed with the fourth stage of cancer in March 2024 and was hospitalized. The Kazakovs have two children, they were then 5 and 9 years old. In fact, Ivan did not become a single father, but due to treatment and frequent stays in the hospital, his wife could not care for the children, and she herself needed help.

Ivan immediately submitted his report for dismissal, justifying it by the need to take care of his children and wife, but the certification commission, which was held in the spring, refused him. “They said that without the spouse’s disability they could not give consent, then we waited for the disability to be granted and held a second commission - in September,” he says.

In a sense, Kazakov was lucky: at the time of his wife’s illness, he had already served for several months not in the combat zone, but in his city. “If I had come back after my vacation, and only then this happened to my wife, then who the hell would have let me go and used me to the fullest,” says Ivan, adding that in the SVO zone it’s better not to talk about problems, and it’s easier and more effective to defend your rights while on vacation.

From the very beginning, Ivan turned to a lawyer for help, who helped draw up complaints and reports - thanks to this, he could live at home with his children, and go to the military unit as if he were going to work.

“I don’t agree to give my children to anyone, these are my children. The spouse has the right not to agree to have some uncle or aunt look after them. We have the right to this. Her mother is only 68 years old, she can barely walk, I buy her groceries, she needs care herself - and that’s it, there is no one else. My mother lives in another city, 65 years old, the same thing,” Ivan wrote in a chat dedicated to “SVO”, in a dispute where another participant suggested that he give his children to be raised by relatives or for state support.

The certification commission approved Ivan’s dismissal in September 2024. But a few months later a refusal came from the Main Personnel Directorate of the Ministry of Defense. Kazakov was ordered to “go to the SVO zone.” He did not agree to go to the combat zone, wrote a report with explanations and attached copies of documents about his wife’s illness, and then sued the Ministry of Defense.

The court sided with Ivan and ordered him to be fired. Since then, employees of the Ministry of Defense have filed claims for appeal and cassation, but lost both times. However, the Ministry of Defense filed another cassation appeal, which should be considered at the end of November 2025.

Ivan has been seeking dismissal for more than a year and a half. According to him, he spent several hundred thousand rubles on paying a lawyer.

“In a situation like mine, the main thing is to maintain order and keep an eye on everything, go around and get things done. In January 2025, on behalf of my wife, we wrote an appeal to the prosecutor’s office and attached all the documents. Naturally, the unit found out about this and stopped being impudent,” says Ivan.

Father of many children, Viktor Ovchinnikov, could not even get his dismissal report reviewed by the certification commission. “In the unit they copied the documents for the children, but no one dealt with dismissal for family reasons, just as they didn’t conduct an IHC for me,” he says.

At the end of August, Victor was approved for leave, and he again took his daughters from the orphanage. “The whole time after I took the children, I was in touch with the command, asking for help in returning me to the unit,” he assures.

On September 6, Victor was supposed to return to duty at the end of his vacation, but he did not do this and continued to live at home with his daughters. He was again declared to have left the unit without permission, and military police officers took him from his home for the second time. And the girls were again sent to institutions, but this time they were separated. 15-year-old Dasha was placed in the family and children's center in Krasnoyarsk, and the younger girls were placed in the family and children's center in Kansk. According to Vorstka’s source, the younger girls should soon be transferred to the same orphanage where they lived before, and what will happen to Dasha is still unknown.

“They say that now I’ll end up on the front line and I won’t see any dismissal, they’ll shove me into the very ass where I can’t get out,” Viktor wrote on October 5 to VERSTKA. According to him, in October he once again sent a report on dismissal for family reasons through the online reception of the prosecutor's office, but was unable to duplicate them in printed form, because he did not have the opportunity to leave the territory of the unit.

On October 16, Victor reported that he was being taken to a combat zone. “We are standing at the airport, they just gave us our phones. They took away our phones and kept us in cages. They are taking us to the LPR, where they want to drive us to the front line. There are a lot of guys like that here,” he said in an audio message and sent a short video from the bus. Since then, Victor has not been in touch again.

Text: Yulia Selikhova

Cover: Marina Levkova

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