The Defense Ministry decided to take payments back from convicted soldiers “to motivate compliance with the law”

The Defense Ministry decided to take payments back from convicted soldiers “to motivate compliance with the law”

Russia’s Defense Ministry has proposed requiring servicemen found guilty of crimes to return one-time payments for signing a contract — if the court did not send them to a penal colony. Verstka found the draft resolution on the website for draft legal acts.

The document says the changes will affect servicemen whom a court has given a sentence not involving imprisonment. If they are not dismissed from service after the verdict and continue serving, the one-time payment will have to be partially returned — in proportion to the number of months remaining until the end of service.

The explanatory note says the size of such payments is 195,000 or 400,000 rubles. The new rules are proposed for servicemen of the Defense Ministry and the National Guard.

The Defense Ministry explained the initiative as necessary to “increase servicemen’s motivation to comply with the legislation of the Russian Federation.” The draft was prepared after a decision made at an operational meeting of the Security Council on April 24, 2026, concerning the prevention of offenses and crimes in the army and other military formations, taking into account the experience of the “special military operation.”

Alexei Tabalov, founder of the human rights project School for Conscripts, suggested in a conversation with Verstka that with this initiative the authorities, among other things, want to save money on payments to servicemen.

“One can only guess what prompted the authorities to take this step, but I’ll venture to suggest it was the large number of deserters, AWOL soldiers, those refusing to carry out orders, and other crimes against military service. But also the shortage of money, of course,” Tabalov said.

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