In Russia, serious criminals can buy their way out of prison by serving in the war against Ukraine. They repeatedly kill afterwards, even in civilian life – as a new case shows.
A man convicted of murder in Russia has killed another woman after returning from the war against Ukraine. An arrest warrant for murder was issued against the 35-year-old in the city of Saratov on the Volga after he stabbed his girlfriend to death in a shop during a relationship dispute, investigators said. They also released video from the crime scene. The man had already been convicted of murder in 2021, as Russian media reported, because he also stabbed his wife in a shop at the time. The women therefore wanted to separate from the man.
Like many convicted violent criminals in Russia, the suspect volunteered to fight in the war against Ukraine and thereby bought his freedom and a pardon from Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin.
Human rights activists have long seen the system as a danger to Russian society because convicted criminals repeatedly commit violent acts after returning from the front. Tens of thousands of convicted criminals in Russia were released again as a result of the war effort.
According to research by the Kremlin-critical Internet platform “Wjorstka”, after more than two and a half years of war, as of the end of September there were new criminal proceedings against 246 former convicts and 180 soldiers. They said they had killed 242 people and injured 227 people in Russia since the war began. Women’s rights activists also repeatedly point out that those returning from war increase the number of cases of domestic violence and bring a high potential for aggression into society overall.
Source: Stern
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