In Mykolaiv Oblast, a Jehovah's Witness was jailed for refusing to be drafted

<span><span><span><span><span><span>The Berezneguvatsky District Court of Mykolaiv Oblast sentenced a man to three years in prison for attempting to evade military conscription on the grounds of religious beliefs. </span></span></span></span></span></span>

<span><span><span><span><span><span>This is evidenced by the verdict in the Unified State Register of Court Cases. </span></span></span></span></span></span>

<span><span><span><span><span><span>On May 15, 2024, at the Territorial Recruitment Center (TRC), officials attempted to serve the defendant with a summons requiring him to report the following day for deployment to a military unit. The defendant, who had been deemed fit for military service based on the results of a medical examination, refused to accept the summons, citing religious beliefs (he has been a baptized minister of Jehovah’s Witnesses since 2016). The man requested to be assigned to alternative (non-military) service and failed to report to the TRC on May 16, 2024, to be deployed to a military unit.</span></span></span></span></span></span>

<span><span><span><span><span><span>In court, the defendant claimed that he did not refuse to perform his military duty but sought to perform alternative service due to his sincere religious beliefs. The court rejected these arguments, noting that alternative service is provided for by law only as a substitute for conscripted service, not for mobilization. The verdict also noted that, in the context of full-scale armed aggression by the Russian Federation, restricting the right to refuse military service on grounds of conscience serves a legitimate purpose, and that the European Court of Human Rights’ peacetime precedent (Bayatyan v. Armenia) does not apply unconditionally in wartime.</span></span></span></span></span></span>

<span><span><span><span><span><span>Earlier, in the Odesa region, a court sentenced</span></span></span></span></span></span> an officer who had attempted to negotiate with the commander of another military unit to transfer servicemen to the rear in exchange for money.

Юлія Калабайда