Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
Hundreds of civilians have been victimized by criminals returning home from the front.
A sharp rise in violent crime is rippling across Russia, emerging as thousands of former prisoners return home after serving in military units deployed to Ukraine.
Communities that once feared the consequences of the mass recruitment of inmates are now confronting what analysts say is the predictable fallout.
Independent Russian outlets report that the influx of men granted clemency for frontline service is reshaping criminal trends nationwide, with authorities struggling to contain the spike.
Rising national unease
The Kremlin has spent years drawing heavily from penal colonies as its forces suffer staggering battlefield losses.
Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service estimates that 140,000 to 180,000 inmates have been drafted, a number that grew as the conflict intensified.
The number’s have not been independently verified.
Many prisoners accepted the deal to escape Russia’s notoriously harsh detention system, leaving civilians increasingly worried about what would happen once they returned.
Those concerns have now solidified into statistical reality. The newspaper Mozhem Poznanie (We can Explain) obtained internal data from Russia’s Interior Ministry showing a surge in the country’s most serious criminal offences since mobilised inmates began reappearing in towns and cities.
Crime statistics surge
According to the figures cited by Mozhem Poznanie, Russian mafia groups committed 44,000 serious crimes in the first ten months of 2025 — a jump of 33.6% over the same period in 2024.
The Interior Ministry also logged 332,251 “serious and especially serious” offences in the first half of 2025, the highest level in 15 years and a 10.4% rise year-on-year.
Analysts interviewed by independent media say these trends reflect a system struggling to absorb thousands of ex-convict fighters who return home desensitised by combat and reliant on the survival instincts shaped at the front.
Violence after service
Further evidence of the pattern emerged in research by the independent outlet Verstka, which reviewed Russian court data. It reported that by October 2024 almost 500 civilians had been victimised by soldiers who had served in Ukraine.
Verstka found that at least 242 people were killed and another 227 severely injured.
The reporting concluded that former inmates committed such attacks more frequently than other veterans, with women making up a disproportionate share of victims.
The same trends are reported by sources like Lawfare Media and Global Initiative.
Sources: Mozhem Poznanie, Verstka, Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service, Lawfare, Global Initiative
