At the end of 2023, a 49-year-old Russian soldier Mikhail Surikov in Ukrainian captivity ended. When the Ukrainians asked him what would happen if he was released in the exchange of prisoners during the interrogation, he replied that Russian commanders would send him back to the battlefield.
Eventually it happened. Ukraine probably replaced it last year as part of the exchange of prisoners and Surikov, whose case recently described the web, then fell on the front.
It turns out that Surik’s case where a former prisoner finds himself again in trenches is not unique in Russia.
Last year, the Russian telegram account described the case of two mobilized men, 32-year-old Vasily Grigoriev and 45-year-old Dmitry Davydov from the Pskov region, which were called to 1009 in autumn 2022. After a few months they ended up in Ukrainian captivity.
At the beginning of January 2024, the Ukrainians exchanged them as part of an exchange of 195 for 195. The soldiers returned to their unit in the Leningrad region and spent the month for rehabilitation. According to Ostoro Úšorno none of them refused the service – they both assumed that they would no longer send them to the fighting. In mid -May, however, they transferred them into the section of the front near Vovčansk in the Kharkov region, where they were in charge of evacuation of injured and dead.
“They both started nerve problems. After one of the incidents, they sent them to dig trenches and bunkers. The older officers have repeatedly said they did not understand why they were fighting for former prisoners of war, but they still sent them to the front line,” writes Telegramkanal.
How did their story end? At the end of August 2024 they fled from the front at the end of August 2024 and they got to Moscow, where they turned to a lawyer. Judicial proceedings have been initiated. However, one of the soldiers did not live to see him. Dmitry Davydov died on September 1 at a military base in Domodedov. The doctors, according to diagnosed a sudden cardiac arrest.
“Return home after exchange”
The newspaper also writes that the Russians are sending back to the front. According to the daily, the families of the soldiers who were exchanged on March 19 this year complained that they could not even see their relatives before they sent them again to the battlefield. According to some family members of former prisoners, after exchange, they took trucks to Donetsk, a city that Russians occupy in the east of Ukraine since 2014. Subsequently, they told the soldiers that they would go on the front.
In particular, the wives of Russian soldiers often complain about similar practices.
According to the Moscow Times, several of them have published challenges in which they turn to the Russian authorities not to send their men back to the front and remind them that sending an ex -existence to the front means a violation of Geneva conventions.
In June, Vladimir Putin, as well as Defense Minister Andrej Belousov, was asked not to send former prisoners to the trenches, Marina Frolova, the wife of one of the Russian soldiers who is more than 13 months in Ukrainian captain. “Our men and we, their families, have gone through many during this period. Just return them home after exchange, not for war,” said Frolova, which circulated social networks.
Let them not violate the Geneva Convention
Even a woman of Russian soldier Maxim Jakimmenk Kristin asks for the exchange of her husband, but at the same time claims that she is afraid of his re -deployment on the front. This is despite the fact that the man is seriously injured. Jakimenková recently described for the Russian website that her husband was mobilized in September in 2022 in the Kursk region.
At that time, Jakimmenko worked as a dealer in the store and, according to his wife, allegedly “pulled him out from behind the counter and was in training before he could recover.” “Nor did they send them a summons: The bus came in the evening, they all caught and took away. That was the situation,” she said.
In 2023, JakiMenko was seriously injured, but according to his wife, once he went through rehabilitation, he was again sent to the front, where he found himself in a unit with other soldiers. Although they allegedly promised them to “sort the papers”, in September 2024, according to Jakimenková, they sent them to the first line.
“They gathered all of them, even those with serious injuries. One of the guys couldn’t move their hands at all. All those cripples wrote requests for release from the service. Their wives threatened with lawsuits. The commander said he would” deal with them “.
Finally, Kristina Jakimenková found that her husband was captured in Ukrainian.
“I am afraid they will send him again to the war. On the one hand, I ask him to put him on lists exchange, hoping that he is seriously injured and the father of many children will not be back to the front. But on the other hand – who knows.
Capture is not yet the end of service
Novaja Gazeta also writes that families complained about human rights activists to return relatives to the Front even after a large exchange of prisoners of a thousand per thousand, which took place in May this year.
Ivan Čuviľayev from the Iditite forest movement (go through the forest) that helps the Russians trying to avoid mobilization, described that the exchanged soldiers are first interviewed by members of the Russian security service FSB and subsequently taken to the barracks in which they were registered.
“It would seem that it is only a formality, but the base may be located, for example, in the Luhansk region (occupied area in the east of Ukraine, which passes the active front line).
Although Russian families argue with international law, namely an article 117 of the Geneva Convention, which forbids sending former prisoners to active military service, Novaja Gazeta notes that Russian legislation does not allow soldiers to voluntarily release themselves from military service during the war. And this also applies to those who were captured.
Only a military medical committee can release a soldier who will recognize that his health has deteriorated after captivity.
In addition, the Russian Defense Ministry also refers to Putin’s decree on partial mobilization, which does not mention the return from captivity as a reason for release from the service.
