As it became known to Kommersant, the military investigation department of the TFR for the Podolsk garrison completed an investigation into a high-profile criminal case on the desertion of eight servicemen from the Kaliningrad region. Having escaped with weapons from a field camp in the LPR, they reached the Moscow region, where they surrendered to the police (see Kommersant of December 28, 2022). According to the defendants, they fled not from participating in a special operation, but because of poor service conditions and the fact that they were not prepared to participate in hostilities, but were going to be sent to the front line. The investigation believes that this is not a justification for the actions of the military.
According to the investigation, on November 15 last year, servicemen Yevgeny Kravchenko, Dmitry Medvedev, Alexander Babenko, Nikolai Kolmachev, Alexander Bogachenko, Alexander Eliseev, Igor Medvedev and Denis Balakhin, mobilized in the Kaliningrad region, as part of the first company of a motorized rifle battalion, arrived on the territory of the LPR, where , “carrying out the duties of military service”, took part in a special military operation (SVO). Initially, the military had to be prepared for participation in hostilities in a field camp located between the settlements of Gladkovo and Malaya Aleksandrovka. However, according to the defendants, instead of combat coordination and shooting, they had to dig trenches and dugouts, as well as to get provisions, which allegedly were not delivered to them in full.
On the night of December 22, junior sergeant Kravchenko, having learned from the officers about the imminent redeployment of the company’s personnel to the front line, informed the rest of the defendants in the investigation about this. As stated in the case file, “not wanting to take part in hostilities due to fear for their lives and health and low moral and strong-willed qualities”, they decided to “evade military service”, in connection with which at six in the morning on December 23 from service weapons (three machine guns and three machine guns without cartridges) left the temporary deployment point of the military unit.
Having reached the nearest settlement on foot, the military purchased civilian clothes instead of uniforms, bags for weapons and left the NVO zone by taxi.
Sergeant Yevgeny Kravchenko, at the request of the investigation, was arrested by the 235th Garrison Military Court of Moscow as the organizer of the escape, and his accomplices were placed under the supervision of the command of the engineering troops stationed in the Chekhov urban district of the Moscow Region, from where they were taken to investigative actions. It is interesting that, extending the term of the preventive measure for Sergeant Kravchenko (for the last time until March 27), the court referred not only to the possibility that the accused would hide or put pressure on other defendants, but also to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms , as well as the decision of the ECHR, noting that the arrest does not violate the principle of reasonable necessity to restrict the right to freedom of the accused.
The other day, investigators charged all eight defendants in the final version with a crime under Part 3 of Art. 338 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (desertion with a weapon committed during an armed conflict or combat operations, from 5 to 15 years in prison). The defendants deny their guilt, arguing that they simply were not ready for hostilities. Their defenders adhere to the same version.
“None of them was going to desert, but they didn’t want to fight unprepared either,” Yevgeny Saveskul, junior sergeant Kravchenko’s lawyer, said earlier.
However, according to the documents of the investigation, the guilt of the servicemen is confirmed, among other things, by the testimony they gave in relation to each other. So, for example, Sergeant Kravchenko, according to the final conclusions of the investigation, “taking into account the military rank and the authority of his position … took direct active actions aimed at inducing other persons to leave their place of service without permission.”
Now the materials of the resonant criminal case are being approved by the military prosecutor’s office, and they will most likely be considered on the merits by the 235th garrison court – at the place where the crime was committed.