The Prosecutor’s Office of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol continues systematic work to bring to criminal responsibility those involved in illegal recruitment campaigns to the ranks of the Russian Armed Forces and criminal mobilization on the territory of the occupied peninsula.

Following a public prosecution by the Autonomy Prosecutor’s Office, the occupying commissioner from Crimea was sentenced in absentia to 11 years in prison. He was found guilty of violating the laws and customs of war, namely, forcing the civilian population of the occupied peninsula to serve in the armed forces of the enemy (Part 1 of Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). This is the first sentence for such a crime in Ukraine!

The convicted is a citizen of the Russian Federation, in 2018 he took up the position of the so-called “military commissar of the Simferopol district and the city of Alushta”. On the instructions of the leadership of the occupier-country, the man directly developed plans and organized 5 recruitment campaigns for residents in the respective areas of the occupied peninsula.

Since 2015, the enemy has been regularly conducting recruitment campaigns and recruiting residents of the peninsula to serve in the Russian army – according to rough estimates, about 39 thousand citizens in the occupied Crimea have already been drafted into the Russian armed forces.

Suspicions of committing similar war crimes have also been served on 10 military commissars from different districts of the occupied Crimea. Three indictments are pending in courts.

The Prosecutor’s Office, together with non-governmental organizations, also informed the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on this issue and provided evidence of war crimes committed by the top military and political leadership of the Russian Federation in the context of illegal recruitment and propaganda of service in the Russian Armed Forces, including among children.