RUSSIAN ARMY DESERTER SENTENCED TO 13 YEARS IN PRISON

Sat 16 September 2023:

A soldier was sentenced to 13 years in a “maximum security” correctional colony in Russia on Friday for deserting his regiment to avoid fighting in Ukraine.

Moscow has handed out harsh sanctions for deserting during mobilization, which sparked a wave of emigration last year, as well as soldiers who refused to fight.

The soldier, Maxim Kochetkov, abandoned his regiment “to avoid being sent to the special military operation” in Ukraine, according to a military trial on the far-eastern island of Sakhalin.

He was arrested in July on the island of Sakhalin by police.

Kochetkov was handed nine years for desertion but had his sentence extended due to criminal proceedings for leaving his unit without permission in February last year.

The court said he will serve the 13 years in a “maximum security correctional colony.”

President Vladimir Putin had ordered the mobilisation of 300,000 men to refill Moscow’s ranks in Ukraine in September last year.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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