Russian warfare is not only leading to casualties in Ukraine. Even in Russia itself, thousands of kilometers from the front, people are being killed and injured because friends, relatives and fellow villagers have different opinions about the so-called ‘special military operation’.
“Due to the mentioned insults and incorrect beliefs about the special operation, Chalapсhanov developed a hostile feeling towards X.” This sentence from a court ruling in the Siberian region of Irkutsk ends the description of an evening in which the vodka flowed freely. Out of anger, Maksim Chalapchanov, a farmer and former civil servant, stabbed Mr. The body was found with a ‘Z’ carved into it, the letter that has been used as a war symbol since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “I was in favour [de oorlog, red]he was against,” the killer admitted.
The deadly disagreement arose because Chalapchanov planned to fight against Ukraine, the court ruling said. His companion had little understanding of this and asked mockingly: what kind of army is that if you have to buy your own equipment?
Mitigating circumstance
Chalapchanov had to go to prison for 7 years. Typical of the state of Russian justice: the proponent of the war was not convicted of the more serious offense of murder for political reasons. The ‘amoral behavior of the victim’ was even seen by the judge as a mitigating circumstance. And typical of most (domestic) violence in Russia: alcohol often adds fuel to the fire.
Violence is also brought into Russian living rooms because the TV is on there. For example, according to the prosecutor, a man stabbed his drinking partner in the stomach after he “stood up for the Ukrainian authorities while news about the Ukrainian troops” was on. A woman drank vodka and wine with her boyfriend and watched the news, causing them to argue about the “special military operation.” She called him a ‘Nazi’ – because of his views or because of his Ukrainian surname – after which he beat her up with a metal chair. The man had to go to prison for two and a half years.
Usually the violence comes from those in favor of the war. A nice bonus for them: if they are really fans of the Russian army, they can avoid their sentence by going from prison to the front in Ukraine. It has often been reported about the crimes committed by criminals who return home as free men after six months of service with the Wagner mercenary army. The regular Russian army continued this recruitment practice in the prisons.
Murder and manslaughter
Now it appears that not only experience at the front, but also opinions about the war, cause violence. The Russian-language websites Mediazona and The New Tab found more than thirty convictions for murder, manslaughter and serious assault in public court documents in which discussions about the ‘special military operation’ played a role. The actual number of cases, the journalists note, is probably higher: military courts in particular do not always publish their (complete) judgments online.
In some cases it is not clear whether the war was indeed the basis for the violence and it appears to be used to argue for a perpetrator, or for a victim who was allegedly attacked because of his support of the war. There is Mikhail Taskin, who was sentenced to nine years in a prison camp in 2020 for three counts of attempted manslaughter, but fought for freedom with the Wagner mercenary army. After two months at the front in Ukraine, he was wounded and returned to his village on the Chinese border: one leg and a long prison sentence poorer and a chest full of medals richer.
Russian media spoke of a scandal: ‘malicious people’ had beaten the ‘innocent Wagner veteran’ on the street after a visit to a café and allegedly ripped off his awards. His sister trumpeted that version of events and received support from the local governor.
But according to Taskin’s fellow villagers, the situation was different: the Wagner veteran had behaved like a bastard in the café, started threatening a person he had shot before his conviction and threatened to harm all bystanders. And his attackers were actually in favor of the war. For example, a villager told the Regnum website: “An everyday fight has been blown up into a political incident.”