Russia has sent so many men to join its war in Ukraine that crime levels in the country fell shortly after the invasion began. Now his return is beginning to unleash a crime wave.
Crimes committed by military personnel not related to war increased more than 20% last year, according to data from Russia’s Supreme Court. While overall numbers remain small and many returning service members do not commit crimes, there has been an increase in cases of violent crime, as well as robberies and drug-related transgressions.
The 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, Yevgeny Prigozhin. Those who survived six months on the front were able to obtain a pardon from President Vladimir Putin and return to Russia as free men.
In prison, “they treat them like ‘we are nothing,’ and then everything gets worse on the front,” said Kazan-based sociologist Iskender Yasaveev. “The experience they come back with is a trauma that will play out for decades.”
Sociologists have long noted that crime levels often increase after the end of military conflicts, and researchers have looked at many possible causes for this, from social disruption to the trauma faced by soldiers. Russia is unlikely to break that trend after Putin ordered the February 2022 invasion that triggered the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II. The return of the prisoners who fought for Wagner offers an early sign of what may happen once hundreds of thousands of men brutalized by fighting return to civilian life.
While lower-level crimes have decreased, the number of murders and sexual crimes, particularly against children, has not decreased over the past two years. Indecent assaults against minors increased 62% compared to the prewar period, according to Bloomberg calculations based on Supreme Court data.
The return of Wagner’s recruits to Russia has come as a shock to residents of cities and towns who discover that men they thought were serving long prison sentences were living among them. Among those pardoned are people convicted of murder and even cannibalism.
Before his death in a plane crash after leading a failed mutiny against the Defense Ministry leadership in June last year, Prigozhin claimed that 32,000 convicts he had recruited had returned to Russia from the war.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to widespread public disquiet by telling reporters in November that criminals pardoned by Putin “atone with their blood for their crimes on the battlefield.”
Still, a law that went into effect in March quietly eliminated the right to a pardon after six months of service, forcing criminals who enlist to remain in the military until the end of the war, like other military recruits. .
However, they return, often deserting. Crimes involving military personnel quadrupled to 4,409 in 2023 compared to 2021, Supreme Court data shows.
One deserter, Artyom, said he fled after half of his stormtrooper squad died during four months in Ukraine. The 34-year-old man, who asked not to be identified by his last name, joined the army to escape harsh treatment in the penal colony where he was serving time for drug trafficking. No one told him that the service was indefinite, he claimed.
The law that ended pardons also allows the Ministry of Defense to enlist not only those convicted but also people in preventive detention. Russia Behind Bars, a prisoners’ rights group, estimates that up to 175,000 former prisoners in total were taken to fight on the battlefield.
A postwar crime surge could cost Russia up to 0.6% of its gross domestic product, said Alex Isakov, a Russian economist at Bloomberg Economics. In addition to the direct costs to life and property, the state will face increased spending on welfare and security, especially policing, he said.
“From the Franco-Prussian War to the Global War on Terrorism, crime rates drop at the beginning of a war and rise dramatically afterwards. Russia is unlikely to find a way out of this pattern. Post-war crime costs can be as low as 0.2% of its gross domestic product if the conflict is resolved in 2024, up to a maximum of 0.6% of GDP, if it continues for another five years and around 3 millions of Russians are exposed to combat. “The total cost of the post-war increase in crime is likely to be considerably higher,” Isakov said.
Anxious to avoid a repeat of the September 2022 draft of 300,000 reservists that sparked a surge in public anxiety about the war, the Kremlin is instead relying on generous payments to persuade men to join the military. Contracted soldiers are offered monthly payments of 204,000 rubles ($2,300), plus signing bonuses that can reach up to 1 million rubles.
That has contributed to a short-term decline in crime, especially in Russian provinces. The drop in recorded crimes was three times greater in areas with high military recruitment, compared to regions with only moderate levels, according to Bloomberg Economics estimates.
“Economic crimes such as theft and robbery, which are associated with poverty, have decreased because the war has poured money into the poorest regions and the poorest segments of the population,” says sociologist and criminal researcher Ekaterina Khodzhaeva. .
Russian courts dealt with almost 62,000 fewer cases last year than in 2021, and the number of those convicted fell by 2%. Police numbers have also declined in many regions, suggesting that fewer police officers were available to solve crimes as people abandoned low-paying jobs for more lucrative military service.
Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev said in May that there is a shortfall of 152,000 officers across Russia, and that one in four positions is vacant in some regions.
This is likely to add to the challenges authorities face in curbing crime as increasing numbers of convicts return from war to civilian life.
“Like any other veteran, they are likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder,” said Anna Kuleshova, a sociologist at the Social Foresight Group. “Added to this is a previous experience of incarceration, all of which combines and can create difficulties integrating into society.”