New Russian law allows criminal suspects to join the army at any stage of their trial – leaving their victims to live in fear – Meduza

Last week, Vladimir Putin signed two bills that would allow defendants awaiting sentencing to sign contracts with the Russian Defense Ministry in exchange for avoiding prison sentences and criminal liability. While the change may seem relatively insignificant since suspects have had the opportunity to go to war for months and convicts have been joining the army for over two years, the new policy represents a groundbreaking change in Russian criminal law: prisoners now have the option You can join at any stage of your process. Journalists from the independent media Cherta spoke to legal experts about the impact of these changes – and what they mean for victims in criminal cases.

On October 3, Vladimir Putin signed two laws allowing defendants to sign contracts with the Russian Defense Ministry before being sentenced. The measures are intended to close “a loophole” in Russian law that already allows suspects and convicts to go to war, but so far does not allow defendants to sign military contracts during the trial.

Now, under Russian law, people in all four of the following categories can avoid crime by joining the war against Ukraine:

• suspects in criminal cases who have not yet been charged;
• suspects who have been charged and are under investigation but whose trial has not yet begun;
• defendants who have been accused of committing a crime but have not yet been convicted (this is the group affected by the new bill); And
• Convicted people who were convicted.

At first glance, extending the ability to join the military to those in the third category may seem like a minor adjustment. In reality, this is the final step in a monumental change to the Russian legal system.

“The innovation of this bill is that [criminal suspects] “They can now have their cases dismissed at any time – even if their case has already been heard in court – by signing a military service contract,” a lawyer from the Call to Conscience project, which works to support conscientious objectors in Russia, told Cherta media .

In other words, every prisoner now has the opportunity to avoid formal punishment for crimes at any time – provided they are willing to go to war instead. If they sign military contracts, there is a good chance that they will be assigned to assault divisions like the Russian Sturm-Z and Sturm-V units, which are sent to the most dangerous parts of the front and suffer heavy casualties.

The prisoners’ contracts with the Defense Ministry are currently effectively open-ended: they cannot be terminated until Vladimir Putin issues a decree ending Russia’s mobilization. However, there are other cases in which prisoners can leave the army without a criminal record: when they receive a state award, when they are discharged from the army when they reach the maximum age limit, or when they are declared unfit for service.

In addition to the possibility for investigators to pressure or force detainees to go to war, signing a military contract can be a free decision of the defendant in order to avoid being held responsible for a crime.

“Now any court ruling is essentially an illusion and no investigation can be considered real. We used to have this unshakable institution: prison was a place where no one wanted to end up. It served as a deterrent for people who, for example, were considering engaging in a fist fight with their neighbor. Now the prison has also become unreal. They tell you that they are accusing you, that they are condemning you to this or that punishment – but all of this can be reversed at your will. You [can] Avoid conviction and a criminal record. […] It is a bold social legal experiment,” said Ekaterina Shulman in a recent interview about the new legislation.

There are some crimes that disqualify convicts from signing military contracts, including crimes related to extremism, terrorism, espionage, disclosure of state secrets, illegal handling of nuclear materials and pedophilia. However, Ivan Chuvilyaev, a spokesman for the human rights group Get Lost, told Cherta that “all these exceptions are a mere formality” and that he expects “persons accused of all kinds of crimes” to sign military contracts.

Devastating consequences

The Russian authorities are adopting this law in order to increase the number of soldiers in the army, several lawyers from human rights organizations told Cherta. Andrei Kartapolov, the chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee, made this clear: in mid-September, he said that the new law would “expand the basis for staffing our armed forces with contract soldiers, both in this and in other situations.”

“They need these changes to close gaps and recruit more contract soldiers. There are not enough convicts [in the army] — [too many] will be sent to remand prisons. The logic here is absurdly simple,” Chuvilyaev said.

While an explanatory memorandum attached to the bill claims that it “will not have negative socio-economic consequences,” this is not the case, according to the experts who spoke to Cherta. Lawyer Maria Davtyan, who heads the Center for Defense of Victims of Domestic Violence at the Consortium of Women’s NGOs, called the changes “a complete breakdown of all legal and criminal justice mechanisms.”

“This level of lawlessness, where you can’t just prosecute and excuse someone from liability if they’ve committed a violent crime, is of course a global precedent,” Davtyan says.

Davtyan’s organization currently represents Irina, a 44-year-old from the town of Sterlitamak, whose abusive former husband Albert Aliyev evaded criminal liability by going to war. It took the group’s lawyers three attempts to get authorities to open a criminal case against Aliyev, and in October 2022, when he was drafted, his case was dropped.

“When Aliyev returned on vacation, we managed to carry out all the necessary investigative measures and bring the case to court. He was placed under house arrest, but quietly returned to prison and the case was closed again,” Davtyan said.

Aliyev was accused of three violent crimes: intentional bodily harm with weapons, threats of death or serious injury and intentional moderate damage to health.

In November 2021, Aliyev attacked Irina in her apartment, beating her severely and accusing her of cheating on him. “I thought he was going to kill me. My own funeral flashed before my eyes,” Irina recalls. He also cut Irina’s son’s ankles, causing permanent damage to his joints. When the police finally arrived, Irina’s neighbors said they didn’t know anything, although Irina believes they heard her screams but were too afraid of Aliyev to report anything.

Irina recalled that after she sued him in court, Aliyev said to her: “You are wasting your time – I will escape punishment and nothing will happen to me.” He also threatened her and told her that he would not give her would “allow” him to stay in the city and that he would find her.

Irina hoped that her attacker would go to prison. “Who can guarantee he won’t come back? [from the war] and do something like that again?” she told Cherta. According to Davtyan, in cases of domestic violence there is a high risk that the perpetrator will repeat his crimes, and due to changes in the law in Russia in recent years, victims like Irina are “not protected at all.”

“If Aliyev receives an award or is fired due to his health, his age or because of the end of his term, he will be exempt from any liability or punishment,” Davtyan said. “A person who has committed a crime is considered innocent, has no criminal record and has the freedom to find a job anywhere, while his victims receive no compensation.”

After Aliyev’s threats, Irina and her children moved to another part of Russia. It took a long time for Irina to recover from the beating. “My face was no face, but a bloody mess; The bruises wouldn’t go away. I spent a lot of time going to beauticians and getting injections and massages to restore the structure of my face,” she said. Now she lives in fear that her new address will be “revealed somewhere” and Aliyev will find her.

The case against Albert Aliyev remains suspended. Lawyers from the Center for the Defense of Victims of Domestic Violence are currently appealing this decision in court.

“These changes devalue the work of lawyers and investigators.” Investigators, especially in the regions, told me that this is a very dangerous situation: they cannot prosecute people who have an obvious tendency to commit crimes. They have known some of these defendants for many years. These are people with multiple criminal records,” Davtyan said.

Granting criminal immunity to people who commit violent crimes, she says, “is fraught with very serious social consequences – not to mention the right of victims to have their crimes investigated and protected from future crimes.”