Military police reportedly torturing relatives to find military deserters in Russia’s Far East

Military police have used violence and torture against relatives of deserters in a number of villages in the Zabaykalsky region of Russia’s Far East, independent regional media outlet Lyudi Baykala reported on Monday.

Olga Vtorushina, told the publication that unknown masked men had forced her 24-year-old son Pavel into a car in the village of Trubachevo and beaten him, demanding to know the whereabouts of his cousin, who had not returned to his unit after being released from captivity in Ukraine.

Pavel was tasered, lost consciousness several times and was only released after calling the second cousin and arranging to meet him. The men, who Vtorushina said were military police officers, then took the cousin away.

On the same day in the village of Novoshirokinsky, a young man who Lydi Baykala gave the pseudonym Alexey was snatched in a similar manner, according to his mother. She said her son had enlisted to fight in Ukraine, but had deserted after suffering a serious head injury, for which he was refused medical attention from his superiors. He had been hiding at home for several months.

Lyudi Baykala said that other villagers had corroborated the accounts of military abductions in the region, which do not appear to have been isolated incidents. In August, the security forces snatched a 36-year-old conscript from the village of Shirokaya, his mother Irina told the outlet. He had absconded from his unit after being furloughed, having decided to stay with his pregnant wife who was expecting their third child.

Military police officers came to the home of friends he was visiting, “tasered him, handcuffed him, loaded him into the trunk and took him away,” his mother said, adding that she believed they were the same men who abducted locals earlier this month. Her son was eventually found beaten up at a military unit elsewhere in the region, after which he was sent back to the front, where he has been missing in action since September.