Russian soldiers at home have been killing, maiming, raping and looting at record rates since the start of [the full-scale invasion](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/russia-ukraine-war/) of Ukraine.
[Moscow](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/russia/)’s garrison military courts have seen a more than tenfold increase in murder cases involving servicemen in the past few years.
They received 729 such cases between 2022 and 2025, compared to just 67 in the four years before the war, according to the data reviewed by Vot Tak, a Warsaw-based Russian-language outlet .
The Russian armed forces expanded by just one-and-a-half times in the same period.
The number of murders also appears to be increasing year-on-year. In 2025, the total sum was one-and-a-half times more than in 2024 and 16 times more than in the first year of the full-scale war.
Almost three quarters of murder cases were committed while the perpetrator was intoxicated, according to Vot Tak.
Why shouldn’t they? On one hand, they are urged to go a few miles to a neighboring country and commit the same things for a paycheck. It’s the Russian way of life! But more seriously, their culture is totally f’ed
FedeAnderzen on
Demands a ransom of beer and cigarettes 🤣
Ivan the intelligent…
Gilly8086 on
PTSD is a thing!! Doesn’t matter US, Ukrainian or Russian.
bigorangemachine on
Well I mean reddit saw this coming… how didn’t they?!
Tomek_of_Thueste on
Can all the people constantly hiding behind PTSD please shut the f*ck up and get lost? What is happening in Russia is not some universal consequence of war. Russia brutalizes its own soldiers through dedovshchina and a culture of abuse, turns them into savage animals, lets them commit unspeakable atrocities in Ukraine, and then gets them back home. That is not just trauma. That is Russia.
secondsniglet on
I thought Russia was not permitting military personnel to have leave. I am confused as to how veterans can be causing problems in Russia if they are being forced to stay at the front till death.
7 Comments
***The Telegraph reports:***
Russian soldiers at home have been killing, maiming, raping and looting at record rates since the start of [the full-scale invasion](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/russia-ukraine-war/) of Ukraine.
[Moscow](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/russia/)’s garrison military courts have seen a more than tenfold increase in murder cases involving servicemen in the past few years.
They received 729 such cases between 2022 and 2025, compared to just 67 in the four years before the war, according to the data reviewed by Vot Tak, a Warsaw-based Russian-language outlet .
The Russian armed forces expanded by just one-and-a-half times in the same period.
The number of murders also appears to be increasing year-on-year. In 2025, the total sum was one-and-a-half times more than in 2024 and 16 times more than in the first year of the full-scale war.
Almost three quarters of murder cases were committed while the perpetrator was intoxicated, according to Vot Tak.
In one case from January this year, a serviceman named Roman Michurin, who had [returned from Ukraine](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/09/09/russia-wagner-ex-convicts-free-committing-new-crimes/) after suffering an injury, kidnapped a woman from a domestic crisis shelter and demanded a ransom of beer and cigarettes to his apartment before strangling her to death.
Alexander Sobolev, the head of the shelter, subsequently condemned “psychopaths, rapists and murderers using the [special military operation](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/06/18/putin-under-pressure-declare-war-ukraine-nationalists-kyiv/) [the Kremlin’s euphemism for the war] as a cover” to commit “terrible acts with a sense of impunity”.
Russian authorities have attempted to conceal the scale of the issue.
**Read more:** [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/04/01/rapists-murderers-russian-army-rampage-home-from-front/?WT.mc_id=tmgoff_reddit_army-rampage-home-from-front/](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/04/01/rapists-murderers-russian-army-rampage-home-from-front/?WT.mc_id=tmgoff_reddit_army-rampage-home-from-front/)
Why shouldn’t they? On one hand, they are urged to go a few miles to a neighboring country and commit the same things for a paycheck. It’s the Russian way of life! But more seriously, their culture is totally f’ed
Demands a ransom of beer and cigarettes 🤣
Ivan the intelligent…
PTSD is a thing!! Doesn’t matter US, Ukrainian or Russian.
Well I mean reddit saw this coming… how didn’t they?!
Can all the people constantly hiding behind PTSD please shut the f*ck up and get lost? What is happening in Russia is not some universal consequence of war. Russia brutalizes its own soldiers through dedovshchina and a culture of abuse, turns them into savage animals, lets them commit unspeakable atrocities in Ukraine, and then gets them back home. That is not just trauma. That is Russia.
I thought Russia was not permitting military personnel to have leave. I am confused as to how veterans can be causing problems in Russia if they are being forced to stay at the front till death.