Russian authorities announced on Wednesday that they had shot dead a soldier who had left a military base. Several media outlets reported that he left his unit behind as part of the offensive in Ukraine.
“Dmitry Perov, who is wanted for leaving a military unit voluntarily without permission, has been found and eliminated,” the government of the Lipetsk region in western Russia said in a statement on Telegram.
This source did not specify where and under what circumstances the man was killed.
The 31-year-old soldier left the “special military operation area in Ukraine” and is wanted in both Voronezh and Lipetsk, the local branch of the state media VGTRK reported.
According to these media, citing anonymous sources, the man may have been armed with a submachine gun and grenades and tried to get to his native village in the Lipetsk region.
Several cases of desertion by Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine have been reported in recent months.
On Wednesday, the Kommersant newspaper reported that a criminal case had been launched against eight soldiers accused of leaving a base in Ukraine’s Lugansk region with their weapons in December and taking a taxi to Russia.
In early December, Russian security forces also arrested a fugitive accused of shooting and wounding a police officer and suspected by the media of being a deserter from the paramilitary group Wagner.
After the start of the offensive in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed amendments providing for up to 10 years in prison for soldiers who desert or refuse to fight.
In September, faced with severe setbacks on the Ukrainian front, President Vladimir Putin ordered 300,000 reservists to be mobilized for combat in Ukraine, prompting tens of thousands of Russians to flee the country to avoid conscription.