The Moscow Garrison Military Court put 24-year-old Dmitry Antipov on the federal wanted list, who served in 75th Coastal Anti-Aircraft BrigadePacific Fleet on Sakhalin, after he escaped before the verdict in the case of unauthorized abandonment of a unit for more than a month during the period of mobilization.
Mediazona found information that the proceedings in the case were suspended because the defendant fled in a card on the court’s website. Antipov's lawyer Maxim Grebenyuk confirmed that the man escaped and clarified that he was put on the wanted list and arrested in absentia — before this, no preventive measures were chosen for him, he was assigned to the Semenovsky Regiment in Moscow during the investigation and trial.
“We were at several meetings, and before the verdict he decided not to come again. The court put him on the federal wanted list and chose a preventive measure in the form of detention in absentia,” the lawyer said. According to him, the debate on the case had not yet taken place, so Antipova was not asked for a term.
Screenshot from the website of the Moscow Garrison Military Court
“Mediazona” told the story of Antipov. He joined the army on September 26, 2020 and served as a sailor on Sakhalin. According to him, at first he wanted to sign a contract for two years without undergoing military service, but then he changed his mind and ultimately did not sign the document. Despite this, Antipov actually served as a contract soldier: he stayed in the army for two years, received a salary all this time and lived in a service apartment, and not in the barracks. It later turned out that his signature on the contract was forged.
The paradox of Private Antipov. A soldier who served for two years under a fake contract is being tried for AWOL
In September 2022, Antipov’s term of service ended, but his dismissal dragged on, and soon Vladimir Putin announced a “partial” mobilization — and all contracts became virtually indefinite. He first went to court to challenge the extension of the contract, since it ended before mobilization was announced, but lost. During the consideration of the claim, Antipov, according to him, was for the first time shown the contract itself, on which his signature and date were forged: September 11, 2020 — two weeks before he arrived at the unit.
According to Grebenyuk’s lawyer, Antipov was included in the personnel lists on the basis of a command order to conclude a contract, but the law still requires that the document be signed by the serviceman himself: this is how the voluntariness of his entry into service is recorded.
In the unit, Antipov said, they began to threaten him with being sent to war in Ukraine, and then he decided to leave there. On February 7, 2023, Antipov and his wife flew to Moscow, where they lived before his military service. Last August he was detained — the 517th Military Investigation Department in Moscow opened a criminal case against him for leaving his unit without permission. According to it, Antipov faced up to 10 years in prison.
As lawyer Grebenyuk noted, the defense managed to prove that someone signed the contract even before Antipov arrived at the unit in 2020 — data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs database “Rozysk-Magistral” was added to the case, in which information about trips of Russians is stored. He insisted the case should have been dropped. However, the investigator refused the request to conduct a handwriting examination, which could confirm that the signature on the document was forged.
“The logic of the investigators is that you served all these two years and did not complain, they gave you a uniform, you received a salary, which means you are a contract soldier. Well, you never know what he understood. There is no contract. This means that he cannot commit a crime against military service,” Grebenyuk explained.