In 2024, Russian military courts received 10,308 criminal cases of refusal to serve, almost twice as many as the previous year — 5,517. These data were collected by «Mediazona»* from the websites of garrison and district military courts at the end of December.
The most common charge remains unauthorized absence, with 14,182 cases submitted to the courts, and 12,460 verdicts already issued. The maximum sentence for this charge — up to 10 years of imprisonment.
Another 683 cases were submitted to the courts on charges of desertion, with 563 verdicts issued. The most severe punishment for this — up to 15 years of imprisonment.
For a more «lenient» charge of failure to obey orders, 1,037 cases were submitted to the courts, with 975 verdicts already issued. Without aggravating circumstances, this charge carries a sentence of two to three years of imprisonment. As reported by «Mediazona», the charge of failure to obey orders is often applied in remote regions — in Kamchatka, Sakhalin, Primorye, Transbaikalia, and Kaliningrad. In the few published verdicts, it is stated that the defendants refused to go to war in Ukraine across the country.
Since the beginning of the war, almost 16 thousand criminal cases have been submitted to the courts. July was the record month — military investigators submitted almost 1,100 new cases to the courts. The courts also reached a maximum speed of work in July — 900 decisions per month. In terms of working days, this amounts to 39-41 verdicts per day. By the end of 2024, military courts had already issued verdicts against 13,897 servicemen in such criminal cases.
* Recognized as a «foreign agent» in Russia.