In Russian regions, hundreds of mobilized soldiers who refused to fight in Ukraine are being forcibly sent to the front. Those who resist are beaten and tied up. Refusers are put on planes at gunpoint and sent to the front, including to assaults near Kharkiv, without regard for injuries, travel restrictions, and scheduled court hearings related to desertion cases.
Sergey Krugly decided not to return to the war because he couldn't stop imagining the human heads he collected from the fields of Ukraine after battles. The 29-year-old resident of Verkhnyaya Pyshma in the Sverdlovsk region was mobilized in the fall of 2022, and in March 2023, he came home on leave. He didn't sleep for the first month. At five in the morning, his mother would call his sister: "I don't know what to do with him." His aunt would come over and see Sergey, who, in a state of unconsciousness, was destroying everything at home. She would somehow calm him down, and he would lie on her knees and repeat:
- There they are flying, Aunt Katya, close the window, close the window!
- Everything is closed, Seryozha!
- The drones are flying, there they are! Aunt Katya, I was walking through the field there, picking up heads. One had such white teeth, he was smiling all the time, I had his head in my hands, and he was smiling...
"It was something else. My heart was breaking. The boy already had a tough life, his mother drank and partied, he didn't know his father. His grandmother raised him," says Sergey's aunt.
In addition to nightmares and PTSD, it turned out that his recently unemployed mother could no longer earn money. They started going to hospitals to register Krugly as the sole breadwinner. "But then it became clear that all doctors had been strongly hinted at by military commissariats not to issue any certificates for relatives' illnesses and to send everyone back to the war," says Sergey's acquaintance.
The mobilized soldier did not return to the trenches. He lived at home, where he was registered, for six months and took care of his mother. He sent all the certificates about her incapacity to the military commissariat and the prosecutor's office, "without hiding." The Ministry of Defense payments ended: most of it went to pay off loans, of which there were "very many."
"Over time, he calmed down a bit. The fits only came back when his mother started drinking," recalls Sergey's acquaintances. His aunt supported him, saying everything would be okay. But in October 2023, police came to the apartment: he needed to testify about leaving his service. He wasn't hiding, says his aunt: so he went.
Vladimir Muronov, a mechanic-driver by profession, was assigned as an orderly to a medical unit. But his relatives say he never served a day as a medic. Vladimir was immediately sent to combat missions, they claim, and afterwards to collect the bodies of the dead.
"Three days on duty, then a shift, if you survive, no more, the tower will come off. So many corpses. I am with them like friends already, it's fucked up," Vladimir wrote.
He came home on his first leave in June 2023. With shaking hands—tremors never stopped for a minute—he hugged his two children. Whenever a car drove by, he would stand up and look to the sky, searching for drones, missiles, and bombs. He listened to the news on TV, his relatives recall, and assessed: "What they said here and what was there in reality." He decided not to go back. He explained simply: "I want to live." His mother, mother-in-law, father-in-law, wife, and sister supported Vladimir's decision.
"He understood that he was in trouble, that there would be consequences, but he decided to take responsibility in the legal field. We thought that this legal field should be respected. There is an article—there is a court, there is a sentence."
Vladimir gave himself and his family the summer. He did nothing. The unit called, demanding his return. It turned out that other soldiers in his medical unit did the same as Vladimir (he didn't specify how many).
While the refuser lived at his registered address without returning to the unit, his wife became pregnant with their third child. But Vladimir didn't get to see the baby: in October 2023, military police came to the house. The mobilized soldier was in the garage; the officers left a phone number. Vladimir called and agreed to go to the city of Svobodny, where the military investigative department and the commandant's office are located: "He will give an explanation and come back." But he never returned.
Vladimir was taken to the 32nd military town in Yekaterinburg, where he was held in a four-story building with other deserters from Ukraine ("SVOs," as they were called). There, Vladimir met Sergey, who had been brought there from the region.
They were given a separate building, "where they were stacked and locked up," as Sergey's relatives describe it. There were many neighbors: Vladimir told his family that there wasn't enough room in the rooms, and they slept on the floor and on the windowsills in the corridor. New arrivals came every week. Documents obtained by "Verstka" indicate that men declared wanted and listed among the 800 who had fled the war as of January 2024 were brought to this building. These data were provided by a military investigator of the Central Military District.
"They were in captivity, and the conditions were better for prisoners," say the relatives of the refusers who spoke with "Verstka." They were not allowed outside; they could only go to the cafeteria and back. The food was bad, but they could order groceries from "Pyaterochka" via courier. None of them were officially detained or arrested.
- Were they given any explanations?
- They were offered to return to Ukraine, in which case their criminal charges would be dropped, their benefits, salary, and allowances restored. Or they were told to stay here and wait for the court. Almost everyone stayed in the building to wait for the court.
"These are people who were ready to serve their sentence for refusing to fight, to take all necessary punishments. They did not want to run from responsibility; they were ready to accept it, go to court, and serve their sentence," says the sister of one of the deserters. This is also acknowledged by the commanders of the refusers. In some of their service characteristics, there is a phrase: "Not motivated to serve in conditions of combat conflicts and military actions."
Around New Year, the commandant changed in the town, and under Lieutenant Lebedev, "complete lawlessness began," say the relatives of the soldiers. For a leave during the holidays, they demanded 30,000 rubles, and then they completely banned even brief visits with relatives. They began using force against those who refused to fight: they would enter the cubicle, close the door, and beat them, six at a time. This was to compel them to "go to Ukraine." Every day, Vladimir wrote to his wife how many cubicles were left until his turn, but eventually, the attackers didn't reach him: "It calmed down a bit."
During this time, many began trying to escape. Some tied sheets together, threw them out the fourth-floor windows, climbed down, and ran over the fence. Some broke their legs and arms this way, canceling their escape.
Others "slipped out through the kitchen" when lucky. But some refusers, after wandering around their hometowns, returned secretly—afraid that they would be found again and "it would be worse."
Still, others used a 15-minute visit with relatives. They passed through the checkpoint, took bags of cigarettes and food from their wives, and then jumped into a nearby car or taxi and drove away from the military unit.
They weren't immediately pursued. But how to live afterwards, ponders one of the wives of the refusers, is unclear. At the registered address—police would come immediately. Couldn't get a job, couldn't visit a clinic, all documents remained at the unit. They would have to move to another city or region, and there was no money for living—Ministry of Defense payments stopped arriving as soon as they didn't return from leave or left the unit.
Sergey wanted to escape too—it didn't work out. Vladimir didn't even try: he thought it was fairer to stay in the barracks, wait for the court, and serve the sentence prescribed by law. In April 2024, his daughter was born; he saw her in a photo sent by his wife.
At the beginning of the May holidays, around 40 armed men and fighters with batons entered the building where the refusers were held. They took out an entire floor—according to relatives, 170–180 people. They herded them into buses and sent them to a military airfield, and from there—straight to the SVO. Two lawyers and three families of those who refused to fight told "Verstka" about this mass deportation to the front.
Among the remaining refusers, panic began; everyone thought about how to get out. One man "due to fears of being sent to the SVO zone" slit his wrists and cut his neck. An ambulance took him away.
Vladimir called the investigator: "How is this possible, my neighbor was supposed to have a court hearing with a
sentence on May 6! And they took him there! How?!" The investigator handed Vladimir's case to the prosecutor's office at the end of April and knew that the court was already scheduled for July, so he replied: "If you are summoned, say that you are under a travel ban and that the case is in the prosecutor's office. They shouldn't take you." And he sent a statement to the military unit about the impossibility of the suspect's departure (available to "Verstka").
It didn't help. Sergey's and Vladimir's group was told they would be next.
Then the refusers wrote an appeal to the Human Rights Commissioner in the Sverdlovsk region, Tatyana Merzlyakova. The text, dated May 13, is available to "Verstka." Almost 70 men signed the last three pages. They call themselves "citizens of Russia; suspected of deserting." Many of them, the document says, have not left the barracks except to the cafeteria for more than six months. They further describe how they were illegally placed in a "SIZO analog," how they are forbidden to see their children, wives, and parents, and if they are taken to a meeting, it is often in handcuffs. In the collective complaint, the soldiers write about suicidal thoughts. They say that people with limited and completely unfit for military service, fathers of many children, and a man who broke both legs trying to escape from the barracks through a window are being held on the floors.
The wife of one of the refusers told "Verstka" that she called Merzlyakova's reception last year and told her about her husband's dozens of missing teeth, abscesses on his body, ulcers in his mouth, defecation problems, and the impossibility of treatment "behind the ribbon." Then one of the employees called her back. "Yes, everyone wants an excuse, everyone wants to bail, we don't have real men anymore, it's unclear who they are, they can't fight," the woman recounts the employee's words.—This is what they told me in the human rights committee, can you imagine? I told them to go to the trenches themselves, send their husbands and children there. I couldn't recover from that conversation for a week."
On the official website of the ombudsman, it says that "due to the large number of appeals," she visited the assembly point for servicemen who had deserted their units a week before the collective complaint was sent, on May 6.
"There were no complaints about violations of their civil rights by the administration of the point. For the servicemen and my staff, this visit was very useful, as we were convinced that they are provided with everything necessary. Living conditions, food, medical services, and the opportunity to meet with relatives—all this allows the guys to wait for any decisions in normal conditions," Merzlyakova said after the visit.
"Verstka" sent a request to the ombudsman's office in the Sverdlovsk region, but did not receive a response at the time of publication.
"They were grabbed arbitrarily"
Vladimir's wife was initially against escaping but couldn't stand the waiting and told her husband to run "at any opportunity." Lawyers advised resisting and not going "there" under any pretext. Vladimir replied to his family that it was unrealistic: "Forty people with batons come to the floor, and if you don't go, they knock you out and load you onto the plane unconscious." Moreover, after the appeal to Merzlyakova, many military police were brought to the unit, and their building was placed under strict control.
On the morning of May 16, Vladimir wrote to his wife that there would soon be a formation from which several dozen people would be taken to war. "At quarter to three. He wrote. His name was on the list. And he wrote that they were leading him to the plane," his wife recounts with pauses.
"And then he writes to me: Aunt Katya, I'm going," recalls Sergey's relative of that day.—I said: Are you kidding? But it turned out to be true." Sergey called on video and showed his aunt how 70 people were herded into buses, and stormtroopers with guns stood at the exit. "Well, it's fucked, we are screwed," he said. The second time he called from Koltsovo. His aunt still didn't believe it, and he showed the airfield and said: "Our plane leaves in half an hour."
"I sent all the papers, the investigator himself sent his statements, put seals everywhere—but that's it, it's fucked," Sergey's aunt cries.—They don't react at all. Now they'll send them—and that's it, we can't do anything. They grabbed them arbitrarily." The woman repeats several times that her nephew went voluntarily and was ready to serve his sentence.
Vladimir's sister demanded that he turn on the geolocation on his phone and rushed after him. She found the military airfield, came to the gate, and began demanding her brother back, who was under a travel ban and awaiting trial. The deputy commandant of the garrison said that there was a personal order to close the criminal case on him and that Vladimir was to be sent to the front.
They refused to show the order to close the criminal case to his sister: "I have 170 people like that now, should I solve this question with each of them?"
It turns out that at least 170 men who refused to fight lost their right to a trial and were completely excluded from the criminal process—something neither investigators, prosecutors, nor lawyers knew about. "On what basis these orders were issued—no one knows. People don't want to fight, they refused once and are ready to serve their time for it. And they just cancel the criminal case—and that's it, they're sent back," says a relative of one of the "SVOs."
Vladimir's sister didn't let them close the car door from which the military spoke to her in Koltsovo, broke through the checkpoint. She sat on the ground and said she would wait until her brother was returned. The woman refused to leave, even when a black BMW X7 with commandant Lebedev arrived, "those people who created such inhumane conditions for the detained soldiers and thanks to whom arbitrary deportations are happening now." The woman was threatened with arrest, "they almost spat in her face." The duty officer, according to her, sympathized with her but said she wouldn't achieve anything.
But eventually, Vladimir was brought out. "Accompanied by three military policemen. Or four. And they didn't let him past the fence. We stood there saying goodbye like monkeys in a cage," his sister cries.—He has changed so much! He looked like a convict. He aged and lost weight, really a skeleton. He looked like he had been in prison for a couple of years without food. And all this in contrast to those pigs in the Beemer..."
His sister handed over groceries through the half-open door, and Vladimir was taken away. Half an hour later, he flew to the war. "I actually understand that we saw each other for the last time. He won't be of any use there. He's barely standing on his feet,—his sister cries again.—They took him to finish him off. He won't survive there. He'll be killed there in a week, maybe two. They just sent them as cannon fodder. And all for what? So these bastards can keep driving BMWs and sitting on their asses."
As "Verstka" found out, mobilized soldiers who consciously refused to fight in Ukraine are held in military units and then sent to the front without their consent in other regions as well. These mass forced deportations began in May. As an investigator told one of the wives: "This is not our idea, this is an order from Moscow." He didn't specify which order.
A woman told "Verstka" that her husband, who left the war in 2022, was detained two years later in Rostov when he went to register car insurance. He spent three months from March in a military unit in Rostov. According to his wife, a three-story building was filled with refusers, with 40 people in one room. Those whose relatives dared to complain to the prosecutor's office and the Ministry of Defense about the conditions were handcuffed and "mentally abused." According to a "Verstka" interlocutor, on May 6 at five in the morning, military police came to the refusers and drove 67 people into buses to Donetsk. Those who didn't want to go were beaten and tied up: "They are sent to the trenches tied up," says one of the relatives. One of the refusers in the bus is still in touch, he says they have already been assigned to assault brigades, they will be led into an attack—"as punishment for refusing to fight." They can't escape: "They are under surveillance."
Friends and families of men from Krasnoyarsk, Moscow, and the Moscow region also reported similar forced deportations of refusers back to the war. Acquaintances of those who fled the front told "Verstka" that they too faced forced deportation to the front instead of a trial and sentence: "I confirm this bullshit in Moscow. The Semenovsky and Preobrazhensky regiments gather all the 'SVOs' on Monday and send them to Mulino, with subsequent dispatch to the Kharkiv direction."
In May, the publication "Astra" also published a video showing a mobilized refuser handcuffed to a piece of rail in a military unit in the Primorsky region. "This is how they force people to go to the SVO. The man didn't want to go. They caught him and are now holding him locked up until the plane. Then they will probably
unhandcuff him before the plane," says one of the soldiers off-camera. Journalists write that in two military units, more than a hundred people who refused to fight are being forcibly sent "behind the ribbon."
And in the same days when Sergey and Vladimir were herded into buses by armed men in Yekaterinburg, 48-year-old locksmith Gennady was taken from Kazan—along with a dozen others who fled the front.
Gennady served eight months after mobilization, and on April 20, 2023, he was wounded. In a hospital in Donetsk, according to his sister, he was treated with brilliant green, but the shrapnel remained inside, near arteries under his collarbones. "But somehow he survived," the family says. The same medics in Donetsk said he should be discharged because the shrapnel was dangerously close to vessels. But no one demobilized Gennady: after treatment, he was not allowed on leave, and in June 2023, he just left the unit.
He returned to Kazan as an old man, says his sister. "He came back like a prune, I didn't even recognize him, black, wrinkled. He could barely walk—he would hobble to the kitchen, out of breath. At first, we thought he had gone crazy. He described hell. Said there wasn't even enough water. Said that on the front line, he didn't want to eat as much as he wanted to drink," his sister recounts. He said that there were "two-hundreds" above their dugouts, water would seep into the shelter, and Gennady and other soldiers drank this corpse water.
He didn't sleep a night the first month. He sat up until morning, watching TV. He couldn't turn off the sound. "If there's silence, it means there will be a hit soon," he explained to his sister. After a few months, he relearned how to sleep, but since then, he has dreamt of the dead every night: "The two-hundreds lying there rotting." Gennady wanted to kill himself and slit his wrists.
In February 2024, police came to the apartment—the refuser lived, like many fugitives, at his registered address. They said Gennady was wanted. He went with his sister to the commandant's office: he wanted to talk about being written off, about the injury, hoped for an investigation, didn't want to end up on the federal wanted list, asked to be demobilized. The locksmith Gennady didn't want to return to the war: "I saw that horror, that meat grinder. You can serve in the army, you can want to serve your country, you can fight—but not like that. It can be done humanely. Not thrown into the front line like meat."
"Of course, I'd rather go to jail"
Gennady was taken to the Kazan Tank School, where he lived with 150 other refusers in shared barracks and went home on weekends. Documents regarding his desertion case were sent from one investigative department to another and still haven't reached the Samara garrison, says the lawyer.
During this time, Gennady underwent medical examinations: on March 14 at the Kazan military hospital, they wrote on one sheet that he was healthy and assigned category A—fit for war. Gennady went for an independent examination. On April 4, doctors, after examining the shrapnel in him, finding an infection and a small tumor, wrote in the conclusion category D—unfit for service. Additionally, the psychiatrist mentioned suicidal thoughts, said that Gennady could be dangerous at least to himself, and prescribed examinations at a mental health facility. All these diagnoses were new to the mobilized soldier, acquired in the trenches.
But on May 17, instead of a mental health facility, Gennady and other mobilized refusers from Kazan were taken to Samara by bus. The locksmith was told this was supposedly for investigative actions regarding his desertion. One of the soldiers traveling with Gennady was supposed to have a court hearing with a sentence in the morning. But the man didn't learn his sentence for refusing to fight—like the others, he was driven onto a plane at the Samara training ground and sent to the front through Rostov.
"We filed complaints with the prosecutor's office, all medical commissions, the military commissariat—and all in vain, it's just fucked," Gennady's sister couldn't hold back.—He was ready to take responsibility for his decision. Doesn't he have the right not to fight? I asked him, if they give you a choice: go to jail or go back—what will you choose? He says—of course, I'd rather go to jail. I'll bring him food there, "warm" him up, as they say? Our mother won't survive if he dies, our father recently died, he's the only man left in the family."
Gennady is now somewhere in the Donetsk region and "ready to ski"—his sister means another escape. But for now, he is surrounded by guards, and there is no way to escape.
Why is the Ministry of Defense taking unprecedented measures—internally ordering the closure of criminal cases initiated by the military investigation and sending men who have already refused to fight back to the front? One version is a shortage of soldiers for the siege of Kharkiv, says one of the appointed lawyers specializing in such cases. For this, as sources told "Verstka" in March, the Russian army needs at least 300,000 men. Therefore, in the spring draft from April 1, 2024, Ministry of Defense employees are persuading conscripts, demobilized soldiers, draft evaders, and reservists to sign contracts with them.
Conscripted signatories and unskilled reservists are sent to Russia's southern borders as support units and border troops—to free up experienced soldiers for the Kharkiv offensive. Several "Verstka" sources, including in the presidential administration, spoke about this. "They don't shy away from replenishing the fighting ranks with deserters. Although, of course, the morale of these men... They don't want to fight. They are ready to go to prison instead. And they even have the legal right to do so. They might be dangerous to themselves in combat," the lawyer suggests.
The father of many children, Vladimir, wrote that he ended up in the first army corps of the "DNR," and his phone no longer worked. His wife was left home alone with three children.
The locksmith Gennady's sister says he is in the Donetsk region and has two weeks of training at the training ground ahead of him, and then—the front line.
The military loan-paying Sergey in the Sverdlovsk region left his "abandoned" mother, as acquaintances call her. She can't feed herself.
Recently, the 29-year-old refuser made contact and told "Verstka" that he was probably calling for the last time. "We are being sent on a combat mission for three months, there will be no phones. It's some kind of assault." His friend clarified if they were being sent into attack as penal soldiers, as punishment. Sergey replied that yes.
Recall, "Verstka" previously told how to replace the army with alternative civilian service despite obstacles from the military commissariat, as well as how a conscript can avoid a contract with the Ministry of Defense and whether it can be terminated.