Putin releases murderers to fight

From prison to the front - Putin releases murderers to fight

The pain of Vera Pechtelewa's parents is almost unimaginable for outsiders. Almost four years ago, their then 23-year-old daughter was brutally abused, raped and finally killed by her ex-partner. The man from the Siberian city of Kemerovo was sentenced to 17 years in prison for the crime - but he is no longer in prison. It became known at the beginning of November: Vera's murderer was pardoned months ago so that he could go to Russia's war against Ukraine as a soldier. His release from prison was sealed by a decree from Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin himself.

The murderer's compensation payments to Vera's family were to be suspended for the duration of his combat deployment. "We were shocked. How can something like this be?" Vera's mother Oxana Pechteleva asked in an interview with the independent portal "Bereg". "And I am not alone. Believe me, there are at least hundreds of mothers like me."

She received support from the well-known women's rights activist Alyona Popova: "What to do?" she asked on her Telegram channel - and gave the answer herself: "Don't be silent! If we remain silent, we simply accept that such murderers are roaming our streets." The crime against Vera Pechteleva, who screamed in vain for hours for help before her death, shocked people across the country in 2020 - and the excitement over the release of her tormentor is now correspondingly great. But this is not an isolated case.

Putin has imprisoned hundreds of thousands of men

Russia has been waging a war of aggression against neighboring Ukraine for almost two years. The fighting is extremely costly on both sides; according to NATO estimates, more than 300,000 soldiers have been killed or injured in the Russian army alone. Last year, Putin mobilized hundreds of thousands of men for the front and the army is constantly recruiting volunteers - but apparently this is not enough.

In June, the recruitment of convicted criminals by the Russian army was therefore legalized. At this point, however, it had long been known that at least the Wagner mercenary group had already recruited prison inmates on a large scale. In particular, they are said to have served as "cannon fodder" in droves during the battle for the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, which lasted until the summer of 2023. Thousands died.

The Kremlin justifies the controversial practice by claiming that the men "atone for their crimes with blood on the battlefield". However, Moscow remains officially silent about how many prisoners have already left the prisons prematurely in this way - as with so much else in this war. Almost a year ago, the non-governmental organization "Rus Sidjaschtschaja" ("Russia behind bars") spoke of around 50,000 recruits who had been enlisted in prisons. Even then, however, only 10,000 of them were still in service, with the rest having been killed, injured, missing or taken prisoner by the Ukrainians. There are no reliable current figures.

"Meduza": state media should not report

The Russian power apparatus apparently also wants to keep quiet about how many of the pardoned criminals reoffend in Russia after their return from the combat zone. According to information from the "Meduza" portal, the Kremlin recently instructed state media not to report on such cases so that Russians "don't get scared".

However, the issue can no longer be kept secret. This is because the Kremlin's military romanticism of supposedly reformed criminals is often contrasted with a completely different reality: for example, there is a murderer from the Kirov region who was recruited by Wagner and stabbed an 85-year-old pensioner to death in his home village after returning from Ukraine.

Or another pardoned murderer from Kemerovo, who - just back from the front - killed his friend in a drunken stupor. Or a former fighter from Novosibirsk who allegedly raped a ten-year-old girl. Not to mention, of course, the war crimes that these men may have committed in Ukraine.

According to experts, we can only speculate as to how serious the consequences of criminals returning home from the war will be for Russian society in the long term. This is also unclear because no one can yet know how many of the pardoned prisoners will even survive their deployment at the front, sociologist Asmik Novikova recently told the Russian-language service of US broadcaster "Radio Liberty".

Enormous financial costs

However, even politicians loyal to the Kremlin believe that an increase in crime is conceivable against this backdrop. "The crime rate may now rise somewhere," Duma deputy Maxim Ivanov told the "74.ru" portal.

And that is not the only consequence of the war that Russian society is likely to feel for a long time to come. It will also have to bear enormous financial costs - not only for the fighting itself ordered by Putin, but also for long-term expenses such as veterans' pensions, payments to surviving dependants, prostheses and other health benefits. In the coming year alone, military spending is expected to account for more than a third of the Russian state budget of almost 37 trillion roubles (around 370 billion euros) - a record figure.