According to the judicial department in Moscow, 113 active servicemen were convicted in 2023, marking a staggering 900 per cent increase from the 13 convictions recorded in 2022.
The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) attributes this significant rise in homicides to the persistent mental health issues related to war. "The high numbers of homicides by serving and veteran Russian soldiers are likely in part due to enduring war-related chronic poor mental health issues," the MoD stated. The issues identified include post-traumatic stress disorder and battlefield desensitisation to violence, with alcoholism and drug use, resulting from low morale and boredom, being probable contributing factors.
The situation is further complicated by the reintegration of ex-convicts into the general population. These individuals, who already had a predisposition towards criminality and extreme violence, were pardoned for their participation in the war. The non-governmental organisation, Russia Behind Bars, reported that 15,000 such prisoners, pardoned for their involvement in the war against Ukraine, have returned from the frontline.
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In 2023 alone, up to 190 criminal cases were opened against these former convicts, including 20 cases of murder or attempted murder. One particularly gruesome case involved an ex-Wagner prisoner, pardoned in 2024, who was sentenced to 22 years for the murder and rape of an elderly woman.
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The mass recruitment of Russian prisoners, which began in the summer of 2022, was spearheaded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the former head of the Wagner private military group. These prisoners, serving in the "Storm-Z" unit, were promised a clean record and full pardon, with the opportunity to return home after six months of battlefield service.
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Prigozhin claimed that nearly 50,000 Russian prisoners had been sent to the front line under this arrangement before his death in a plane crash in August. While thousands of these convicts died, others, including those convicted of violent crimes, returned to Russia.
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The Russian military assumed control of the scheme in February 2023, abolishing the right to a pardon and mandating that prisoners fight until the end of the war. As reported by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Russia has already lost 465,000 soldiers and thousands of pieces of equipment.
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