Viktor Selavev (43) was in prison when the war in Ukraine started. A few months later he was recruited and sent to fight in Luhansk. Now he himself faces execution by the Russian army because his unit fled Ukrainian fire.
The Russian army recruited 43-year-old Viktor Selavev into a prison in Kaluga, where he was serving a four-year sentence for theft. According to the Russian human rights organization gulagu.net, who spoke to Selavev’s wife, Selavev was severely beaten in prison. That was why he signed up to fight in Ukraine.
In early October, Selavev and other mobilized soldiers were transferred to the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk and assigned to a local militia. Selavev had combat experience in the second war in Chechnya in the early 2000s.
Huge losses
In Luhansk, the Russian troops suffered huge losses. About 50 percent of Selavev’s unit is said to have been killed, the other half fled. Selavev was also wounded several times, but reportedly returned to the front each time.
There the commander of his unit was killed, whereupon Selavev himself was beaten commander. In new fighting, the Russians were again forced to flee and Selavev was wounded again.
He was taken to a hospital, where, according to his wife, he was immediately arrested by the secret service and taken for execution. Russian prisoners who sign for mobilization in Ukraine are not allowed to surrender or flee, under penalty of execution.
LOOK. Russian President Putin announced a “partial” mobilization in September. In the meantime, Russia is also recruiting prisoners.
mercenary
According to gulagu.net, Selavev himself wanted to return to his prison to convince other inmates not to fight in Ukraine. The human rights organization acknowledges that the Russian “deserves no sympathy”. “Unfortunately, he took part in the war as a mercenary soldier, became an illegal combatant and even the commander of one of the secret units of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. He received injuries and received money, killed [mensen] and participated in military aggression against Ukraine,” said gulagu.net on its Telegram channel.
But the organization also advocates the “right to life” and appeals to Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu, military prosecutors and detectives to spare Selavev. They are, according to gulagu.net, “responsible for the lives of those they took out of prison and forced to participate in the war”.
demolition hammer
For several weeks now, both the infamous Russian Wagner mercenary army and the Russian army have been recruiting prisoners for the battle in Ukraine. It is extremely difficult for Russia, especially after Ukrainian troops managed to relieve the Kharkiv region and the southern city of Kherson.
It was recently revealed that a Russian ex-prisoner who had surrendered to Ukrainian troops and ended up back in Russia in a prisoner exchange was probably murdered with a sledgehammer by Wagner’s people. “No one has the right to shoot prisoners,” writes gulagu.net. “Neither Prigozhin, nor Shoygu, nor Putin. Such is the Constitution of the Russian Federation.”
The Moscow Times reported that the first trials of Russian mobilized soldiers who refused to fight have begun.
Saluting platoon
The Telegram channel Zapiski Veterana (‘notes from a veteran’) shows a video of two young men being taken from a saluting platoon in the Belgorod region. An officer reads that they have been arrested, whereupon they are violently taken away to an arrest van, without offering any resistance.
Tatyana Degtjareva confirmed to Polygon.Media on Sunday that her husband Yuri, who can be seen in the video, had refused to be deployed on the front lines as “cannon fodder”. After being called up in September, Degtjarev was sent to Luhansk in eastern Ukraine “with no combat experience and no proper military training,” Degtjareva said.
Mobilized soldiers who refuse can face up to three years in prison.
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