The head of a women’s shelter in Irkutsk, Siberia, called for an end to “impunity” for Russian soldiers returning from Ukraine on Wednesday, after a soldier whose wife was being supported by the charity abducted and murdered another resident there.
Alexander Sobolev, head of the Russian non-profit foundation Obereg, described the incident in a Telegram post. He did not name the perpetrator or the victim in order to protect the families’ privacy.
He explained that the Russian soldier in question – after abusing his wife and seven-year-old son for “several months” – had gone AWOL from his unit. He took another resident of the Obereg shelter – “a random, innocent victim” – hostage on Tuesday evening. By the early hours of Wednesday morning, the mother of two was dead.
Despite this, Sobolev emphasized that he and the rest of Obereg’s staff “respect and honor the defenders of our homeland” – repeating the Kremlin propaganda narrative that Russian troops in Ukraine are defenders rather than invaders.
Nevertheless, he said that he was ready to speak out about a “serious problem brewing” in Russian society.
“Psychopaths, rapists, and murderers, using their involvement in the Special Military Operation [the Kremlin’s name for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine] as a cover, regularly commit terrible acts with a sense of impunity. He ignored police calls, he escaped from his military unit in Rostov, he beat people every day, and was convinced that nothing would happen to him except that he would be sent back [to his unit],” Sobolev said.
The victim’s two daughters have been temporarily placed with their grandmother. Sobolev added that approximately ten phone calls had been made to the police about the soldier’s abuse of his wife, but no official report was ever filed.
“I urge the police and military commandant’s office to investigate this and similar cases and draw all necessary conclusions to prevent this from happening again,” he added.
Sobolev also called for an internal review of the police response to the abduction, questioning why there were only a small number of negotiators and why no assault was made on the apartment where the victim was being held among other aspects of the case.
“Friends, everyone makes mistakes in such a difficult matter, but there is a suspicion that there were serious shortcomings in the work,” he said.
“This post was written personally by me, Alexander Sobolev. My opinion may not reflect the opinion of the Obereg Charitable Foundation. I ask that all responsibility for any legal consequences of this publication be addressed to me personally,” he caveated his post.
Sobolev may be right to fear legal ramifications. Within a month of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin had introduced new legislation making it a crime to “discredit” Russia’s armed forces.
Although Russia keeps no records of crimes committed by its veterans, this case is not the first and neither is it likely to be the last. In 2024, BBC News reported that Russian soldiers were avoiding justice for their crimes because of their military service.
According to one estimate cited, at least 242 Russians had already been killed by returning soldiers two years ago, with 227 more seriously injured.