Russian courts have recorded a record number of cases of soldiers deserting their units or not returning home after their time on leave, according to an investigation by the BBC Russian service. Many deserters take refuge with relatives, who also risk prosecution.
On the morning of March 23, 2023, in a village in the Stavropol region of southern Russia, a young man named Dmitry Seliginenko took his girlfriend on a motorcycle to pay her bills at the local authority offices.
Six months earlier he had been called up to fight in Ukraine, within the framework of the military mobilization of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In March of that year he should have returned to the combat front.
But he did not return to his unit after 10 days of medical leave and was now on Russia’s wanted list.
On his way through the village, the young man was located by his former classmate Andrei Sovershennov, who had joined the police force after finishing his studies.
Sovershennov alerted the military police and, shortly after, three men tried to arrest Seliginenko while waiting for his girlfriend.
Seliginenko managed to contact his mother and stepfather, who went to the village to intervene. There are two different versions of what happened next.
According to the official police version, Seliginenko’s stepfather, Aleksandr Grachov, grabbed Sovershennov’s handcuffs and shouted: “Arrest me.” He then allegedly pushed an officer to the ground and began punching him.
According to the family’s version, it was Aleksandr Grachov who was allegedly pushed to the ground and beaten after demanding to see an arrest warrant for his stepson.
Both ended up in the hospital, and Grachov was later charged with assaulting a police officer.
Seliginenko, for his part, got into his parents’ car and drove away.
The incident sparked a heated debate in a chat group created by the villagers.
Seliginenko’s family claims that their son was not even destined to join the army; that he was not given a proper medical examination to see if he was truly fit for service, and that he was sent to the front despite testing positive for the coronavirus.
In January 2023, Seliginenko developed skin conditions caused by the extreme cold, and was given time off to rest. Two days after arriving home, he underwent gastric surgery. The family argued that Dmitry was unfit for military service and should have been evaluated by a military medical commission.
Not everyone in the chat group was sympathetic to their arguments, and in response the family posted this emotional appeal to their neighbors.
“Here you are living comfortably in our village, but who of you will come with us to a hospital in Pyatigorsk, Budyonnovsk or Rostov to see how many wounded soldiers lie there?… Before judging others, put yourself in the mother’s shoes and their son who have already suffered so much… They have their husbands and children by their side; “You better pray that the same thing doesn’t happen to you!”
In March 2024, Aleksandr Grachov was found guilty of assault and fined 150,000 rubles ($1,500).
Dmitry Seliginenko has not returned to his military unit and his current location is unknown.
None of those involved wanted to speak to the BBC.
“They have taken all our men away”
Hundreds of kilometers from the town in the Stavropol region, two other cases have been brought before the judge in a court in Buryatia, a republic on the other side of Russia.
In the dock were soldier Vitaly Petrov, who had deserted his unit, and his mother-in-law, Lidia Tsaregorodtseva, who had tried to prevent local police from arresting him.
The BBC has reconstructed what happened from court documents and the testimony of people familiar with the case, who we are not naming for security reasons.
Vitaly Petrov, 33, father of two and originally from Sharalday, was called up to fight in Ukraine in 2022.
The region is one of the poorest in Russia. In autumn 2022, it had one of the highest mobilization rates in the country, and also one of the highest death rates, according to an investigation by the BBC and the Russian independent news outlet Mediazona.
In June 2023, Petrov escaped from a military hospital to which he had been sent after previously going AWOL and being forcibly returned to his unit earlier the same year.
His mother-in-law says he was unfit for military service and suffered from headaches. She also stated in court that Petrov He had been subject to violence and extortion in his military unit.
Military prosecutors say Petrov was simply trying to avoid being sent back to the front.
During the summer and fall of 2023, Petrov hid at his mother-in-law’s house. He spent most of the day in the nearby forest, searching for pine nuts, mushrooms, and berries, and returned home occasionally at night to sleep.
Grigory Sverdlin, an activist with the NGO Run to the Forest, which helps soldiers who have deserted flee the country, estimates that around 30% of deserters stay inside Russiawhile the rest go abroad. According to Mediazona, there are more than 13,000 cases in Russian courts on charges of desertion and absences without leave.
In December 2023, armed police showed up at the house at night to arrest Petrov.
What happened next again has different versions.
Tsaregorodtseva claims that the police broke down the door and broke into the housepushing her and her two terrified young granddaughters aside as they began searching the house and hauling up the floorboards with an axe.
He also claims police did not show him identification or a warrant, something authorities deny, according to court documents. They also point out that they did not search the house or move anything.
Both family and police say Petrov emerged from his hiding place in the basement and his daughters ran toward him.
In court documents, both the family and the police accuse each other of violence, as an altercation occurred while police officers were trying to arrest Petrov.
He was dragged out of the house and, according to his young daughters, police hit him with a stun gun. The lead investigator on the case was taken to the hospital with burns caused by boiling water during the altercation.
Both Petrov and Tsaregorodtseva were prosecuted. Petrov He was sentenced to six years in prison for being absent without leave. Her mother-in-law was sentenced to two years in prison and to pay compensation of 100,000 rubles (almost US$1,000) to the police officer who was injured during the altercation.
A source familiar with the case told the BBC that Vitaly Petrov’s wife was relieved that her husband was in prison and not back on the war front.
A BBC source also said the war was taking its toll on people in rural areas.
“They have taken all the men from the townsthere is no one left to do the hard work, take care of the animals and prepare for winter. One child is sick, the other is scared to death. If you’ll pardon the expression, in the villages only women are left whistling in the wind.”
The same source said that many local men felt in “an impossible situation”: sent to war whether they wanted to or not, while their families were left fighting alone at home.
Seven years for desertion
Another case seen by the BBC was that of a convicted soldier.
In January 2023, Roman Yevdokimov, from a village on the Russian-Mongolian border, was sentenced to seven years in prison for deserting his unit.
The 34-year-old, who had been convicted twice of robbery, was called up for military service in October 2022 as part of Putin’s national mobilization.
Yevdokimov spent only a month in the army before going AWOL and returning home. He spent time hiding in the woods and his relatives hid him in the basement of his mother-in-law’s house, until military authorities finally caught him and he was sent to prison.
But as a convicted felon, he was offered the chance to go fight in Ukraine, instead of serving his sentence. Yevdokimov survived six months as a stormtrooper and, according to the then regulations – which have been modified – he was released and returned home in April 2024.
His family says that The six months he spent at the front have left him traumatized and unable to return to his previous life. He now spends much of his time in the forest, where he previously hid from the military police.
As a stormtrooper drafted into prison in 2023, he has an official pardon overturning his seven-year prison sentence for desertion, but there are no documents to prove that he fought in the military and was injured in the line of duty.
Many combat veterans recruited from prison are now trying to take the Russian Defense Ministry to court to demand recognition of their status.
But for Yevdokimov, the four-hour trip to the nearest recruiting office to try to resolve his problems is simply too much to consider.
“When I went to see him, he, with a few drinks on him, said: ‘Maybe I should sign up to be a contract soldier?’” his sister told the BBC.
“I won’t let him go and he’s afraid to leave me because he knows how much I care about him. But he wants to return to his companions, because some of them are dying and he is worried about them. “He is suffering from being there.”
These cases are only a small fraction of the high number now coming to court.
Official records show that in 2024, around 800 soldiers were convicted each month for going AWOL, failing to follow orders or deserting their units. According to Mediazona, this figure doubles that of the previous year and multiplies by more than 10 the number of convictions before the war.
There are no official statistics on how many family members have also been convicted of helping escaped soldiers.
*Additional reporting by Olga Ivshina
Editor: Olga Shamina
Illustrations by the BBC Russian visual journalism team
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