Olga ran her index finger abruptly across her neck as she recounted the threats her husband made to her after he returned to Russia, injured in the fighting in Ukraine.
“I will cut off your head and your hands and beat you. I will burn you with acid,” he threatened her, she said.
Even before her husband left to fight in Ukraine, he was a violent alcoholic, Olga – not her real name – told AFP.
When he returned home seven months later, he was even worse. And now he was a war hero, endowed with a sense of impunity and moral justice.
“He became even more radical,” she said. “He said he was untouchable, that nothing could happen to him.”
– Domestic violence –
Long before Russia invaded Ukraine, human rights groups had sounded the alarm about the country’s woeful record in protecting women from domestic violence.
In 2017, lawmakers – with the blessing of the Orthodox Church – reduced sentences for Russians convicted of beating family members.
And the Kremlin under Vladimir Putin has argued in recent years that abuse within families should be resolved by families, not law enforcement.
With the war in Ukraine, activists say an already widespread problem could now get even worse.
Although there are no publicly available figures on the extent of violence perpetrated by veterans, activists have identified a number of survivors.
Local media is also awash with reports of violent crimes committed by former soldiers.
AFP spoke to two Russian women about the violence they suffered from war veterans in Ukraine. Both requested anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Their testimonies are rare, given the way the Kremlin has sought to exalt veterans fighting in a war it considers existential.
Moscow has introduced new laws to criminalize criticism of the Russian army and its soldiers.
– ‘Icy’ eyes –
Olga’s life in her isolated Russian town has long been marked by violence.
Her husband was an alcoholic who regularly raped and beat her, stole money and monitored all of her social interactions, she said.
Repeatedly, he would beg for forgiveness after a fight, only to become violent again, she said.
So, when he volunteered for the army in October 2022, Olga hoped that the proximity of “death and tears” would calm him and sober him up.
Their hopes were dashed. He returned from the front earlier than expected to recover from a shrapnel wound.
“The next night I had a nervous breakdown,” she said.
“He was completely sober, but his eyes were shining. His eyes were ice cold. He started insulting me,” she recalled.
Tensions were rising at home that night and Olga called an ambulance to take refuge, anticipating the moment he would raise his hand to her.
“If you let me out of this vehicle, it will kill me,” she told the ambulance crew.
AFP independently analyzed the threats Olga received via text message, as well as reports compiled by rights group Consortium, which support the women’s testimonies.
– ‘Dreams of justice’ –
Police took a statement from Olga and told her husband to leave, but otherwise took no action, she said – a practice that human rights defenders have denounced for years.
Her husband remained free and free to spend the equivalent of the 30,000 euros he received in compensation for his injury.
The couple ended up divorcing and Olga’s ex-husband returned to Ukraine months later, in December 2023 – but not before attacking her one last time and stealing money from her.
Since her ex-partner left again for Ukraine, Olga said she had been worried about the idea of holding him accountable – “dreams of justice”, as she called it.
What triggered this was a television program she watched about domestic violence. “It felt like they were talking directly to me.”
The program prompted Olga to file a complaint with authorities and the Consortium over the phone to get guidance on how to protect herself.
Sofia Rusova, from the group, told AFP that she had received around 10 reports like Olga’s involving veterans last year alone.
She repeated warnings expressed by other advocacy groups that the Kremlin’s decision to invade Ukraine has exacerbated domestic violence in Russia and normalized extreme violence.
“The consequences can be felt for a decade,” he warned.
– ‘You will not be punished’ –
Placing veterans on a pedestal – part of a Kremlin effort to bolster support for the devastating conflict – has endowed them with a feeling that they are above the law, she added.
“Women often tell me that the attacker said he would not be punished,” Rusova told AFP. “These men flaunt their status.”
But this feeling among veterans also has roots in the failure of the Russian judicial system to combat domestic violence, he added.
“The system has sometimes failed to defend women before, so these men think it will continue to fail women and that the state will be on their side,” Rusova said.
Regional media outlets across Russia regularly publish reports about violent crimes committed by military or former members of the Wagner paramilitary group that fought for the Kremlin in Ukraine.
Although in some cases defendants receive long prison sentences, they sometimes escape easily.
In separate cases in the southern regions of Volgograd and Rostov, near Ukraine, two veterans were allowed to walk free after stabbing their girlfriends. One of the victims died.
The main difficulty in bringing them to justice is that Russia has limited mechanisms for prosecuting violence within the family.
In 2017, Russia decriminalized certain forms of domestic violence, classifying them as an administrative offense and not a crime, with reduced penalties.
Weak legal protection for women means there is little incentive for security forces to pursue suspects – or for victims to report the problem in the first place, activists say.
This month, AFP asked the Kremlin to comment on a series of reports in the local press describing episodes of violence between veterans.
Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin recently met with Interior Ministry officials and the issue had not been raised.
“This type of violence was not among the areas of concern,” he said.
– ‘Pure terror’ –
The Kremlin has also spoken out in favor of military conscription in prisons, paving the way for dangerous criminals to return to society if they survive a period of months on the battlefield.
Rusova, from campaign group Consortium, said several Russian arrests had confirmed to her that people convicted of domestic violence had been recruited to fight in Ukraine.
A woman expressed relief when she learned that her abusive husband had been killed in Ukraine, she told AFP.
Nadezhda had to face her abusive ex-husband, a veteran of the Wagner group, when he returned from the front a year ago, even more aggressive than before.
The Wagner group suffered tens of thousands of losses during some of the bloodiest battles of the war, before being disbanded by Moscow after its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, organized a short-lived rebellion.
When her ex-husband returned, he had a serious drug problem, Nadezhda said. But he insisted that she pay due respect to her service with what he considered an elite fighting force.
She struggled for months with feelings of shame and uncertainty about whether she should seek help, she said.
Finally, after an outburst of violence that made her fear for her children’s lives, she fled to a shelter late last year.
A sympathetic police officer helped her file a legal complaint which – to her surprise – led to her ex-husband’s arrest.
“We had gotten used to the nightmare,” she said. “We lived with it. We thought it wasn’t serious.”
“But now that we are processing everything, we understand that it was pure terror,” she said.
Nadezhda and her children now receive psychological support. But even though her ex-husband is behind bars, she is haunted by the fear that he will one day return seeking revenge.
“Still, you walk around and there is a fear that he will jump,” Nadezhda told AFP.
“There is always the feeling that he is out there with a knife. It’s so ingrained in my head.”
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