March 30, 2025

A Deserter's Dilemma


A Deserter's Dilemma
From the battlefield to the home front to the prison cell. The Russian Life files.

Viktor Svetlichny, a 35-year-old Ukrainian, has been sentenced to seven years in Russian prison for desertion, after having lived in Russia as a citizen for almost two years.

Svetlichny is from the Donetsk region and was mobilized into the "people's militia" of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR; one of the Russia-aligned breakaway regions of Ukraine) in 2022, at the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He was discharged in March 2023, when he moved to Russia and acquired Russian citizenship.

He was detained in October 2024 in a small town in Karelia. Initially, he was accused of "unauthorized abandonment of his place of service," but this was later escalated to "desertion" — a much more serious charge.

Court documents label his nationality as "Ukrainian" and seem to cover up what appears to be a bureaucratic blunder causing Svetlichny seven years in a penal colony.

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