The Kyiv District Court of Odesa granted the prosecutor's motion and released a local resident accused of leaving a military unit without permission from liability.
As stated in the verdict, the man faced the most severe punishment under Article 407 of the Criminal Code (AWOL from a military unit or place of service), as he committed this crime in wartime, and therefore faced imprisonment for a term of five to 10 years.
The man served as a senior shooter-operator with the rank of junior sergeant and left the military unit in May to go to the hospital and did not return until October, when he came to the State Bureau of Investigation.
When the prosecutor requested that the sergeant be released from criminal liability, he emphasized that it was the first time the man had committed a criminal offense and that his military commander had agreed that the junior sergeant should continue his military service in the military unit in question. The court also took into account that the man came and surrendered himself. Therefore, the man was given 72 hours to return.
Meanwhile, the Kyiv Court of Appeal upheld the decision of the Pechersk Court of Kyiv to keep Odesa activist and soldier of the 56th Brigade Serhiy Gnezdilov in the brig, who had left the military unit without permission.
Serhiy Gnezdilov, the founder of the VydelkaFest festival in Odesa region and now a soldier, went AWOL to protest the uncertainty of the mobilization deadline.
The soldier from Odesa region also left the location of the military unit where the unit was located without permission. The court imprisoned him.
In addition, in Mykolaiv, a court sentenced a soldier of the Armed For ces of Ukraine for unauthorized abandonment of a military unit. The accused went home without the knowledge of his superiors, where he spent two months repairing a house damaged by shelling. He was sentenced to 5 years in prison for this.
Кирило Бойко