Russia sent so many people to join the war in Ukraine that the country’s crime rate dropped shortly after the invasion began. Now their return is starting to cause a wave of resentment.
According to the Supreme Court of Russia, last year the number of crimes committed by military personnel not related to war increased by more than 20%. While the overall numbers are still low and many returning service members do not commit offenses, there has been a jump in violent crime, as well as theft and drug offenses.
These figures do not include crimes involving tens of thousands of prisoners released from prison to fight in the war under a program created by the late leader of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeni Prigozhin. Those who survived six months at the front were able to receive a pardon from President Vladimir Putin and return to Russia as free men.
In prison, “they are treated as if we are nobody,” and at the front everything gets even worse,” said a Kazan sociologist Iskender Yasaveev. “The experience they come back with is trauma that will last for decades.”
Sociologists have long noticed that crime level often rises sharply after the end of military conflicts, and researchers have looked at many possible reasons for this, from social upheaval to the trauma soldiers face. Russia is unlikely to buck the trend after Putin ordered an invasion in February 2022 that sparked the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II. The return of prisoners who fought for Wagner is an early signal of what might await when hundreds of thousands of people brutalized in the fighting return to civilian life.
Although petty crime rates have fallen, homicides and sex crimes, especially against children, have not decreased over the past two years. According to Bloomberg calculations based on Supreme Court data, indecent assaults on minors are up 62% since before the war.
The return of Wagner’s recruits to Russia came as a shock to residents of towns and villages, who discovered that living among them were people who they believed were serving long prison sentences. People convicted of murder, and even cannibalismwere among those pardoned.
Before his death in a plane crash after leading a failed mutiny against Defense Ministry officials last June, Prigozhin said 32,000 prisoners he recruited had returned to Russia from the war.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to widespread public concern tell reporters said in November that criminals pardoned by Putin would “atone with blood for their crimes on the battlefield.”
Still law The law, which took effect in March, quietly eliminated the right to pardon after six months of service, forcing convicts who joined the army to remain in the army until the end of the war, like others conscripted.
Nevertheless, they return, often by desertion. Crimes involving the military quadrupled in 2023 to 4,409 compared to 2021, according to the Supreme Court.
One deserter, Artyom, said he fled after half his stormtrooper squad died in four months in Ukraine. The 34-year-old man, who asked that his last name not be used, joined the army to escape harsh treatment in the colony where he was serving a sentence for drug trafficking. According to him, no one told him that the service would be indefinite.
The law that abolished pardons also allows the Ministry of Defense to recruit into its army not only convicts, but also persons in pre-trial detention centers. The prisoners’ rights organization Russia Behind Bars estimates that a total of about 175,000 former prisoners were taken to fight on the battlefield.
The post-war surge in crime could cost Russia as much as 0.6% of its gross domestic product, said Alex Isakov, Russia economist at Bloomberg Economics. In addition to the direct costs of living and property, the government will face increased costs for social welfare and security, especially for the police, 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. The costs of post-war crime could range from 0.2% of gross domestic product if the conflict is resolved in 2024, and up to 0.6% of GDP if it continues for another five years and some 3 million Russians are caught up in the fighting. The full cost of the post-war increase in crime is likely to be significantly higher,” Isakov said.
Seeking to avoid a repeat of the September 2022 draft of 300,000 reservists that sparked a surge in public anxiety over the war, the Kremlin is relying instead on generous payments to persuade men to join the army. Contract soldiers are offered monthly payments of 204,000 rubles ($2,300) in addition to signing bonuses that can reach 1 million rubles.
This helped contribute to a short-term decline in crime rates, especially in the Russian provinces. Bloomberg Economics estimates that the decline in reported crime was three times higher in regions with high military conscription rates compared with regions with moderate rates.
“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 criminology researcher Ekaterina Khodzhaeva.
Last year, Russian courts considered almost 62 thousand fewer cases than in 2021, and the number of convictions decreased by 2%. Police numbers have also fallen in many regions, suggesting fewer people are able to solve crimes as people give up low-paying 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 is likely to exacerbate the challenges authorities face in fighting crime as more prisoners return from war to civilian life.
“Like any other veteran, they most likely suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder,” said Anna Kuleshova, a sociologist at Social Foresight Group. “This is linked to previous experiences of imprisonment, and all of these combined can lead to difficulties integrating into society.”