The 39-year-old Dmitry Setrakov was mobilized, along with hundreds of thousands of other Russian men, late last year and sent to the frontline in Ukraine’s southern Zaporyzhzhia region mostly occupied by Russian forces following their February 2022 invasion of the country. Setrakov fled a military hospital there in April this year, according to the Russian human rights group Idite Lesom that helped him take refuge in Armenia in late November.
The group revealed recently that Russian military police arrested and transferred Setrakov to a Russian military base in the northwestern Armenian city of Gyumri in early December. It said on Tuesday that he is currently in police custody in Russia.
“They got him out of Gyumri, he is not there anymore,” said Idite Lesom spokesman Ivan Chuviliaev.
Both Idite Lesom and an Armenian human rights group, the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly (HCA), earlier condemned Setrakov’s detention in Armenia as illegal. The HCA leader, Artur Sakunts, appealed to Armenian prosecutors to clarify how Russian officers were able to arrest the man on Armenian territory. Sakunts also demanded that they prevent his extradition to Russia.
The Office of the Prosecutor-General said on Wednesday that Russian law-enforcement authorities had not asked it to track down, detain and extradite Setrakov. It claimed to have “no information” about his detention in Armenia. It thus remained unclear how the fugitive soldier was flown back to his country where he is now facing up to ten years in prison on desertion charges.
An HCA spokeswoman, Ani Chatinian, decried the prosecutors’ statement and accused the law-enforcement agency of inaction.
“In essence, Dmitry Setrakov was illegally transported to the Russian Federation, and Armenia signed the [guilty] verdict which will be given to him in Russia,” Chatinian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Setrakov is the first Russian soldier known to have fled to Armenia and been arrested there after refusing to take part in fighting in Ukraine.