These data are presented in the published report of the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ Directorate for Tomsk area for 2025. According to document Last year, “persons who committed 511 crimes were identified, criminal cases for which were suspended due to their conclusion of contracts with the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.”
In 2024, 672 criminal cases were suspended for the same reason. The dispatch of prisoners to the front began in 2022, when the founder of the Wagner PMC Evgeny Prigozhin offered convicts the opportunity to receive a pardon after six months of combat service in Ukraine. In 2023, the Ministry of Defense took over the recruitment of prisoners, but under different conditions: they could only return from service if seriously wounded. According to the "If to Be Precise" project, in the first half of 2025 alone, there were suspended about 25,3 thousand Criminal cases are increasing due to defendants leaving for military service. The official number of prisoners who signed contracts is not disclosed, but experts estimate it to be in the tens of thousands. Human rights activists note that in some cases, defendants may be sent to war even before a court verdict is issued.
Human rights activist and journalist Svetlana Anokhina in an interview with the Eyewitnesses project He speaks, that such a practice effectively makes crimes unpunished and sends a signal to society that this is acceptable.
"If it's acceptable to invade a foreign country, kill people there, torture them, seize territory, then this inevitably spills over into one's own family when the person returns, and into society as a whole... People clearly perceive signals from the state: it's allowed, it's permissible... And now, when, having committed the most serious crimes against life and personal integrity, one can walk straight from the courtroom, without waiting for a verdict, to go to war—this signal has become especially perceptible."
— said Anokhina.