The wives of Russian soldiers have told of how their husbands are abusing them after returning from the fighting in Ukraine.
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, President Vladimir Putin ordered the mobilisation of hundreds of thousands of men.
Moscow has used its many personnel serving in Ukraine to launch constant attacks, exhausting the enemy soldiers but suffering huge losses in the process.
AFP has now spoken to some women who describe the awful circumstances they have faced after their husbands returned to Russia from the war.
One woman, using the pseudonym Olga, told the outlet that her husbands threatened her by saying: “I’m going to cut your head and hands off and beat you up. I’ll burn you in acid.”
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She described how returning as a war hero made her husband’s aggression worse: “He became even more radical. He said that he was untouchable, that nothing could happen to him.”
Russia was already well-known for its troubling record regarding domestic violence.
But Olga’s story shows how the war in Ukraine may be exacerbating the problem.
Having received threats from her husband on multiple occasions, the police took a statement from Olga and told her husband to leave. But no action was taken after this.
Sofia Rusova from Consortium says she has received reports similar to Olga’s o 10 occasions involving Russian men who has served in the military.
She said: “Women often tell me that their attacker said he wouldn’t be punished. These men flaunt their status.”
Russia has recruited prisoners to fight for the military in Ukraine, many of whom were jailed for domestic violence.
Nadezhda told AFP that her husband went to serve with the private Wagner Group and later developed a drug problem.
She said: “We had got used to the nightmare. We lived with it. We thought it wasn’t serious.
“But now that we’re processing it all, we understand that it was pure horror.”
The problem has not been helped by Putin’s decision in 2017 to decriminalise some forms of domestic violence.
New laws meant that beatings of spouses or children that result in bruising or bleeding but not broken bones could result 15 days in prison or a fine, if they do not happen more than once a year.
This was previously punishable with a jail sentence of up to two years.
