Russia sent so many men to fight in the war in Ukraine that crime levels in the country plummeted soon after the invasion began. Today, their return is beginning to trigger a wave of offense.
Crimes committed by military personnel that are not related to war increased by more than 20% last year, according to data from the Russian Supreme Court. Although the overall numbers are still low and many returning service members do not commit crimes, there has been an increase in cases of violent crime as well as theft and drug-related transgressions.
These figures exclude crimes involving tens of thousands of convicts released from prison to join the war under a program established by the late leader of the Wagner mercenary group, Eugene Prigozhin. Those who survived six months at the front were able to obtain a pardon from President Vladimir Putin and return to Russia as free men.
In prison, “they are treated as if we were nothing, then the situation is even worse at the front,” explains a sociologist based in Kazan. Iskender Yassaveev. “The experience they come back with is a trauma that will play out for decades. »
Sociologists have long noted that crime levels These phenomena often increase after military conflicts end, and researchers have examined many possible causes, from social disruption to trauma suffered by soldiers. Russia is unlikely to buck the trend after Putin ordered the invasion in February 2022, which sparked the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II. The return of prisoners who fought for Wagner offers a first signal of what might await us once hundreds of thousands of men brutalized by combat return to civilian life.
Although petty crimes have declined, the number of murders and sexual offenses, particularly against children, has not decreased over the past two years. Indecent assaults against minors increased by 62% compared to the pre-war period, according to Bloomberg calculations based on Supreme Court data.
The return of Wagner’s recruits to Russia was a shock to townspeople and villages who found among them men they thought were serving long prison sentences. People convicted of murder, and even cannibalismare among those pardoned.
Before his death in a plane crash after leading an abortive mutiny against Defense Ministry leaders in June last year, Prigozhin claimed that 32,000 convicts he had recruited returned to Russia after the war .
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to widespread public concern by narrative journalists in November that the criminals pardoned by Putin “atonement with their blood for their crime on the battlefield”.
Always a law which took effect in March, quietly removed the right to pardon after six months of service, requiring criminals who enlisted to remain in the military until the end of the war, like others enlisted in the army.
They nevertheless return, often deserting. Crimes involving the military quadrupled to 4,409 in 2023 compared to 2021, according to Supreme Court data.
One defector, Artyom, said he fled after half his assault squad was killed over four months in Ukraine. The 34-year-old, who asked not to be identified by his last name, joined the army to escape mistreatment in the penal colony where he was serving a sentence for drug trafficking. No one told him the service was indefinite, he said.
The law that ended pardons also authorizes the Ministry of Defense to enlist not only convicts but also people placed in pretrial detention. Russia Behind Bars, a prisoners’ rights group, estimates that in total up to 175,000 former prisoners were taken to fight on the battlefield.
A post-war rise in crime could cost Russia as much as 0.6% of its gross domestic product, said Alex Isakov, a Russia economist at Bloomberg Economics. In addition to direct costs in terms of living and property, the state will face higher spending on social protection and security, including policing, he said.
“From the Franco-Prussian War to the Global War on Terror, crime rates fall at the start of a war and rise sharply afterward. Russia is unlikely to find a way out of this situation. Post-war crime costs could be as low as 0.2% of gross domestic product if the conflict is resolved in 2024, as high as 0.6% of GDP if it continues for another five years and that approximately 3 million Russians are exposed to combat. The total cost of increased crime after the war will likely turn out to be significantly higher,” Isakov said.
Keen to avoid a repeat of the September 2022 conscription of 300,000 reservists that caused a surge in public concern about the war, the Kremlin is instead relying on generous payments to persuade men to join the army. Contracted soldiers are offered monthly payments of 204,000 rubles ($2,300) in addition to signing bonuses of up to 1 million rubles.
This contributed to a short-term decline in crime, particularly in Russian provinces. According to Bloomberg Economics estimates, the decline in recorded crimes was three times greater in areas where military recruitment is high, compared to regions where levels are moderate.
“Economic crimes such as theft and burglary, which are associated with poverty, have declined because the war has injected money into poorer regions and poorer segments of the population,” explains the sociologist and crime researcher Ekaterina Khodzhaeva.
Russian courts handled almost 62,000 fewer cases last year than in 2021, and the number of convictions decreased by 2%. Police numbers also declined in many areas, suggesting they were less available to solve crimes as people abandoned low-paid jobs for more lucrative military service.
Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev said in May that there was a shortage of 152,000 officers across Russia, with one in four positions vacant in some regions.
This risks adding to the challenges authorities face in fighting crime as increasing numbers of convicts return from war to civilian life.
“Like any other veterans, they are likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder,” said Anna Kuleshova, a sociologist at the Social Foresight Group. “This is in addition to previous experience of incarceration, all of which combine and can lead to difficulties integrating into society.”
