The Supreme Court made it a crime to surrender when there is an opportunity to resist

The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation explained that surrender constitutes a crime only if it was voluntary. RAPSI with reference to the draft resolution of the Plenum on the practice of considering criminal cases on crimes against military service.

“If a serviceman, due to his physical condition, is not able to evade captivity, his actual capture by the enemy does not form the corpus delicti of this crime (for example, finding a serviceman in a helpless state, including as a result of a severe wound or shell shock),” reads an excerpt from the document.

At the same time, a serviceman (according to Article 23 of the charter) in the course of hostilities must resolutely resist the enemy and avoid being captured, even being separated from his military unit and completely surrounded – it is important for the courts to take this moment into account, the highest judicial authority emphasized.

“Surrender into captivity should be understood as various actions (inaction), as a result of which a soldier passes into the power of the enemy. In those cases when actions (inaction) aimed at surrendering do not end with the transition to the side of the enemy for reasons beyond the control of the will of the person, the deed constitutes an attempted surrender, ”the draft resolution of the plenum states.

A serviceman who voluntarily surrendered to captivity can be released from criminal liability only if he complied with all the conditions from the note to the relevant article, that is, he took measures for his release, returned to the unit or to the place of service and did not commit during his stay in captivity of other crimes.

Amendments to the Criminal Code, among other things, providing for imprisonment for a term of three to ten years for voluntary surrender, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed September 24, 2022. The initiators of the bill then spoke senators Andrei Klishas and Olga Kovitidi, as well as nine deputies: Dmitry Vyatkin, Ernest Valeev, Vasily Piskarev, Andrey Kartapolov (all from United Russia), Leonid Slutsky (LDPR), Oleg Nilov (A Just Russia – For Truth) , Vladislav Davankov (“New People”), Viktor Sobolev, Nikolai Kolomeitsev (both from the Communist Party).