The soldier did not report for duty in May 2022, "not wanting to take part in a special military operation," the court press service in the Republic of Bashkortostan in the southern Urals said.
A Russian court has sentenced a 24-year-old soldier to five years in prison for refusing to fight in Ukraine, officials said Thursday.
The soldier did not report for duty in May 2022, "not wanting to take part in a special military operation," the court press service in the Republic of Bashkortostan in the southern Urals said.
According to AFP, law enforcement located the man, Marsel Kandarov, in September, the statement added.
Separately, a military tribunal said it sentenced Kandarov to five years behind bars for evading military service for more than a month during mobilisation.
Russia announced the mobilisation of 300,000 men in late September to buttress Russian troops on the ground in Ukraine.
The announcement triggered an exodus of men from Russia, with many fleeing to neighbouring countries including Armenia, Georgia, and Kazakhstan, Moscow Times reports.
Critics say many of those mobilised had no combat experience and had received little training before being sent to the front.
The sentencing comes a day after a military tribunal in Moscow sentenced a soldier to five years and six months in a penal colony for "beating" an officer during an argument, Russian state news agency TASS reported Wednesday.
The soldier expressed "his dissatisfaction" with the training being given to newly mobilised servicemen outside Moscow.
While speaking, he blew cigarette smoke into an officer's face, who responded by pushing him away. The private then pushed the officer in the chest.
A video of the incident that circulated online showed the soldier complaining of poor training, using obscenities, and calling the drills an "imitation.
In another development, Ukraine claims more than 100 Russian soldiers have been killed in a single missile strike in the Soledar area in eastern Ukraine.
It comes amid a brutal battle for the salt mining town – Soledar.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of Russian private military firm Wagner and a close ally of Vladimir Putin, said his forces had captured all of Soledar.
The Ukrainian military, however, insisted the battle was not over.
On Thursday, Ukraine said it had used a Soviet-era Tochka-U missile to blast and kill a group of more than 100 Russian soldiers after they were spotted with a drone, The Sun UK reports.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said: "Over a hundred Russian occupiers were eliminated in the Soledar area.
"This happened thanks to the coordinated work of soldiers of the Special Operations Forces, gunners and rocket launchers."