From the MT:
“‘We Save
Everyone’: The Lawyers Helping Russian Soldiers Evade Service in Ukraine”
For legal
adviser Andrei Rinchino, each day begins by sorting through dozens of new
messages from Russian soldiers and their families. Each message is different but all are looking
for the same thing: Rinchino’s guidance on how to quit the Russian army or
avoid being sent to fight in Ukraine. “A
couple of weeks ago one of my followers wrote to me that her son and some of
his fellow soldiers at the front handed in their notices,” said Rinchino, who
is head of the legal department at the Free Buryatia Foundation, an anti-war
organization founded by members of Russia’s indigenous Buryat community. “A hundred people all [resigned] at the same
time,” he told The Moscow Times.
Since the
start of Russia’s bloody invasion of Ukraine in February, thousands of Russian
contract soldiers and National Guard employees have refused to be sent into
battle. Helping these conscientious
objectors are a handful of Russian human rights organizations, NGOs and
individuals with legal training. But, as the Kremlin looks to shore up support
for the war and crush dissent, Russian lawyers have faced an unprecedented wave
of pressure. “Even before [the
invasion], the atmosphere in the country was not the best for working as a
lawyer, but since the beginning of the war things have become absolutely
horrible,” said prominent human rights lawyer Ivan Pavlov, who left Russia last
year. The Kremlin’s insistence on referring to the war in Ukraine as a “special
military operation” — and its decision not to order a general mobilization —
means refusing to fight is a relatively simple legal process. To avoid being
sent to a war zone, soldiers simply need to claim “anti-war convictions,”
according to the Free Buryatia Foundation’s Rinchino. “[This
means] a person is not physically able to take a gun and kill people,” he said.
For Russian
soldiers and members of the National Guard — a domestic military-style force
usually tasked with maintaining public order — refusing to fight in Ukraine
usually results in the termination of their employment with no possibility of
return. But some have hired lawyers in a
bid to be allowed to keep their jobs. Mikhail
Benyash, a lawyer in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, took on the case of 12
National Guard soldiers who were fired after refusing to take part in the
invasion. All disputed their dismissal in court — and three pressed charges
against their former employer. A vocal critic of the Kremlin and the Ukraine
war, Benyash has been arrested and reportedly even assaulted by National Guard
servicemen tasked with quelling anti-government protests. Despite these
experiences, he was still happy to help National Guard soldiers. “You know, I have even defended some very
corrupt people,” Benyash told Russian YouTube journalist Karen Shainyan in May
when asked about his new clients. “For activists, it is sometimes difficult to
understand [what lawyers do]. For them, the world is black and white… But us
lawyers, we defend everyone.”
Other lawyers
helping Russian servicemen include Maxim Grebenuk, whose “Military Ombudsman”
page on social media platform VKontakte offers “free legal advice to
servicemen,” and Pavel Chikov, who heads human rights group Agora. Both Grebenuk and Chikov declined to comment
on their work when contacted by The Moscow Times. As the war drags on, there appears to be no
let up in the numbers of soldiers coming forward. Rinchino said that, despite
the fact that the Free Buryatia Foundation’s legal initiative was created to
assist ethnic Buryat soldiers, it has now grown far beyond its original scope
with requests for help coming from other ethnic republics in Russia. “It doesn’t matter to us if [the person] was
pro-Putin in the past,” Rinchino said. “We are just like doctors, we save
everyone.” There is no publicly available data on how many soldiers have
avoided being sent to fight in Ukraine with the help of lawyers, but the number
is likely to run into the thousands. The
Free Buryatia Foundation has given legal advice to more than 350 conscientious
objectors and many more have likely used step-by-step resignation instructions
posted on the Foundation’s social media pages, according to Rinchino. And
Chikov said in that Agora provided legal advice to more than
700 servicemen in less than a month of fighting. The head of the Free Buryatia Foundation said
Monday that 150 contract soldiers from Buryatia had recently returned home
after refusing to fight in Ukraine.
As Russia
seeks to plug a manpower shortage among its forces in Ukraine, the risks for
Russia-based lawyers helping soldiers to avoid the frontlines are only likely
to rise. “Everything that has to deal with the war is very sensitive for the
state. Extremely sensitive,” said lawyer Pavlov, who was accused of treason by
Russian investigators last year in what he linked to his involvement in the
legal defense of journalist Ivan Safronov. “Of course, when examining a case somehow
connected or associated [with the war], then the judge will always consider the
signals they receive from the higher-ups,” Pavlov told The Moscow Times. Another
lawyer involved in the Safronov case, Dmitriy Talantov, was arrested last month
on charges of spreading “fake information” about the Russian army and faces up
to 10 years in prison if found guilty. And a court in the Russian exclave of
Kaliningrad last month ordered lawyer Mariya Bontsler to pay a $1,000 fine for
questioning Russia’s actions in Ukraine. Rinchino, who is conducting his work from
abroad, said that the pressure on his in-country colleagues is “massive” —
though no one is planning to give up just yet. “We are not working alone on
this issue and that makes me happy,” he said. “I personally wish for more
contract soldiers to reach out to me.”
^ Not every
Russian wants to be a Nazi committing War Crimes in Ukraine. We need to help
those that are anti-Putin and anti-Nazi Z. ^
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.