25 October 2025
by Aleksandr Podrabinek
Source: Facebook
Not everyone is ready to go to the slaughter
In Kazan yesterday evening, a military commandant’s vehicle was attacked by two unknown men while transporting a deserter they had just arrested. This story has been covered by a range of media outlets and Telegram channels. They reported the man had been arrested that day as part of an operation by the commandant’s office to find draft-dodgers and deserters in the local area. The arrested man was a Kazan native and veteran of the Russian military who had presumably deserted his unit of his own initiative. He was being taken to the commandant building on Dzerzhinsky Street near the city centre to be reassigned to military service.
As the convoy stopped at a traffic light, a black Kia Rio without number plates drove up to them. Two men got out and one of them opened the passenger door of the commandant’s car, removed the arrestee and took him back to the Kia Rio. These men were not armed, according to witnesses. For a while, the city authorities tried to recover the arrestee, but without success.
Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, at least 49,000 soldiers and officers have deserted the Russian military, according to the publication Vazhniye Istorii, writing in May 2025. The open-source intelligence (OSINT) investigative foundation Frontelligence Insight estimates that more than 50,000 personnel had deserted the Russian army up to December 2024. The real number of draft-dodgers and deserters in Russia may be even higher.
Translated by Oscar Seecharan
