Namangan man “Ded” imprisoned for joining Russian army

In 2023, a 55-year-old man from Namangan, identified as R.K., who was recruited into the Russian army on a contract basis, was sentenced to two years in prison. QALAMPIR.UZ reviewed the court documents related to the case.

According to the documents, R.K. traveled to the Russian Federation via Kyrgyzstan in May 2023 for seasonal work. After working there for some time, he applied to the Federal Migration Service (FMS) to obtain a work patent. However, FMS officers informed him that he would not be issued a patent but suggested that if he signed a contract to participate in the war between Russia and Ukraine, he would be granted Russian citizenship and allowed to work legally in the country.

Subsequently, in June 2023, R.K. voluntarily signed a one-year contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense to take part in the armed conflict against Ukraine. He served in the Russian Armed Forces as a “mechanic-operator” under the callsign “Ded.” R.K. received a one-time bonus of 700,000 rubles for joining the war and earned an average monthly salary of 150,000–200,000 rubles (approximately 25–30 million soums). He was engaged in the technical repair of combat vehicles at military unit No. 02511 in Belgorod, a city near the Ukrainian border. In May 2024, R.K. was discharged from service due to health issues and returned to Uzbekistan at the end of June 2024.

On September 11 of this year, the Namangan City Criminal Court reviewed the case. R.K. fully admitted his guilt in court. According to his testimony, when he applied for a patent at the FMS office in St. Petersburg in May 2023, officials initially refused due to his prior criminal record in Russia. He was then offered a military contract, which he accepted. Although contracts were generally limited to individuals under 50 years of age, he was later offered a one-year frontline service contract and received a bonus of 700,000 rubles after completing the necessary paperwork.

R.K. stated that between July and August 2023, he was waiting at a special military base in St. Petersburg for the assembly of contracted personnel. Once the group was gathered, the recruits were screened by age and then sent to Belgorod in September 2023. There, R.K. served as a “driver-mechanic” in the Russian army and received a monthly salary of about 2,000 US dollars, which was transferred to his wife, Y.N. In mid-April 2024, due to deteriorating health, he sought medical treatment at a military polyclinic in Belgorod but was referred to a hospital at the Military Academy in St. Petersburg. He was hospitalized for a month with a diagnosis of ischemic heart disease. To recover, he returned to Uzbekistan in June 2024 via the St. Petersburg–Tashkent bus route.

It was later discovered that R.K. was among 1,100 Uzbek citizens identified by the Ukrainian government as participants in the armed conflict. His name appeared under record number 392 with personal ID number MT-891289 on the Telegram channel “Khochu Zhit.”

By the court’s verdict, R.K. was found guilty under Part 1 of Article 154 (recruitment) of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Uzbekistan and sentenced to two years in prison. The sentence is to be served in a general-regime colony.

It is worth noting that earlier, a 25-year-old resident of Khatirchi district in the Navoi region was sentenced to four years of restricted liberty for participating in the war against Ukraine as part of the Russian army.