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In villages of the Gazimuro-Zavodsky District in Russia's Zabaykalsky Krai, military police officers are torturing civilians in an effort to locate servicemen who have deserted their units, the local outlet Lyudi Baikala reports.
On Nov. 2, a group of armed men wearing masks and camouflage forcibly dragged 24-year-old Pavel from the village of Trubachevo into a service vehicle. His captors beat him, used a stun gun, and demanded that he reveal the whereabouts of his cousin, Petr, who had failed to return to his military unit. Pavel's mother, Olga Vtorushina, said the unidentified men arrived in three vehicles and drove through several neighboring villages. After the interrogation, Pavel sought medical help at a local hospital, where doctors recorded bruises, swollen finger joints, and marks from handcuffs. Pavel also filed a complaint with the police.
During the interrogation, the men ordered Pavel to call Petr and ask him to come to a specified location. When Petr arrived, they grabbed him and drove away. Petr had previously been held in Ukrainian captivity and returned home in the summer as part of a prisoner exchange. His family believed that after captivity, he would not be sent back to the war. Soon after he was taken by military policemen, however, he was redeployed to the front.
A similar incident occurred in the neighboring village of Novoshirokinskoye. On Nov. 2, unidentified men captured 25-year-old Aleksei, a contract soldier who had suffered a severe head injury. After Aleksei was discharged from the hospital, his command wanted to send him back to the front without a medical examination, prompting him to hide in his home village for several months. While searching for Aleksei, the men used a stun gun on his father and beat up his friend. Aleksei's mother says the group searching for him was sent by military unit 06705 from the town of Borzya and that these men were not military police. Aleksei is currently in custody. His parents have hired a lawyer and are preparing for trial.
Similar incidents have been occurring for months. On Aug. 19, military police forcibly took 36-year-old Viktor from the village of Shirokoye to Chita after he failed to return to his unit on time following leave. According to his mother, Irina, Viktor was stunned with a taser, handcuffed, and thrown into the trunk of a car. For several days following the arrest, the family had no information about Viktor’s whereabouts. He was eventually located at a military base in the settlement of Domna with a broken nose and taser marks on his body.
These cases have been confirmed by local authorities. The heads of several settlements, including Trubachevo and Novoshirokinskoye, told Lyudi Baikala that force had indeed been used against civilians as part of an effort to locate soldiers who deserted. The district newspaper Vechorka also reported cases of masked men patrolling the streets of the village of Ushmun in search of deserters. Complaints about beatings have been filed with law enforcement agencies.
Desertion is becoming increasingly widespread in the Russian army. As of mid-2024, approximately 8,000 cases had been opened against deserters. Now, however, the number of convictions handed down by Russian military courts already stands at at least 18,000. The Insider recently spoke with deserters who had been forcibly returned to the front and escaped again. They described how the military police track down runaways and detailed the threats and methods of manipulation that are used to force them back to their units.