As it became known to Kommersant, military investigators of the ICR opened a criminal case on desertion with weapons during the armed conflict against eight servicemen from the Kaliningrad region. Last year, with their regular weapons, including four machine guns, they left the camp in the LPR, by taxi and hitchhiking, reaching Podolsk near Moscow. The alleged organizer of the escape was arrested, other servicemen were isolated in the unit. They themselves explain the escape by the difficult conditions of service.
The 235th garrison military court of Moscow granted the petition of the investigation for the arrest of junior sergeant Yevgeny Kravchenko. He will be in jail until at least February 27.
Sergeant Kravchenko is the main defendant in the criminal case of desertion with a weapon committed during an armed conflict or combat operations (part 3 of article 338 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, from five to fifteen years in prison). The investigation considers him the organizer of the escape.
Other defendants in the investigation are corporal Dmitry Medvedev, sailor Alexander Babenko, as well as privates Nikolai Kolmachev, Alexander Eliseev, Igor Medvedev, Alexander Bogachenok and Denis Balakhin. The investigators of the Military Investigation Department (VSO) of the ICR for the Podolsk garrison of the Moscow Region did not apply to the court with petitions for the election of measures of restraint, confining themselves to transferring the military under the supervision of the commander of the military unit in the military town of Chekhov-4.
As reported by “Kommersant”, at the end of December last year, the military came to the Podolsk police department. All of them were in civilian clothes, and four Kalashnikov machine guns and four Kalashnikov machine guns were taken out of the trunks and handed over to the guards.
According to the explanations of the military, which they gave to the police and the Armed Forces of the TFR, who conducted the pre-investigation check, they were mobilized on September 24 last year, and on November 12 they were transferred to a field camp between the villages of Gladkovo and Malaya Aleksandrovka of the LPR. There, the mobilizers were supposed to be trained to participate in hostilities, however, according to their version, the commanders used them more in the construction of dugouts for living in the camp. At the same time, the servicemen allegedly were not provided with the most necessary, including provisions and high-quality uniforms.
According to the Kaliningraders, when they were informed that they would be taken to the front line on December 24, they decided to leave the camp “to save life and health.”
On the evening of December 23, having bought food and civilian clothes, they ordered two taxis to Lipetsk, where they spent the night, and then reached Podolsk on passing minibuses.
According to Yevgeny Saveskul, a lawyer for junior sergeant Kravchenko, whose older brother is fighting as part of an air assault brigade in Zaporozhye, the choice of the direction of withdrawal was spontaneous – away from the NVO zone and closer to Moscow. “The ultimate goal was Kaliningrad, from where they were sent to the NVO zone. None of them was going to desert, but they didn’t want to fight unprepared either, ”the defender told Kommersant.
By the way, one of the reasons for the arrest of Sergeant Kravchenko was the suspicion of his participation in a certain brawl in Voronezh. However, the soldier’s relatives claim that he has never been in this city.