Russian jailed five years for refusing to fight in Ukraine

MOSCOW — A Russian court sentenced a 24-year-old professional soldier to five years in prison for refusing to fight in Ukraine, officials said on Thursday.

The soldier, “not wanting to take part in a special military operation,” did not report for duty in May 2022, said the press service for courts in the region of Bashkortostan in the southern Urals.

Law enforcement located the man, Marsel Kandarov, in September, the statement added.

Separately, a military tribunal said it sentenced Kandarov to five years behind bars for evading military service during mobilization for m