Corporal Nikolay Kartashev, who used to serve in a military unit near the Russian city of Pskov and was sentenced in December 2022 for going AWOL, has been re-deployed to the war in Ukraine and has ended up in Ukrainian captivity, Mediazona reports, citing his relatives.
According to his mother Irina Kartasheva, she received a phone call from an Ukrainian number on 6 February. She was told that her son was being held captive and then allowed to talk to him.
“He said: ‘I’m in captivity, I’m being treated well, do not worry.’ And they also said that he would be exchanged [during a POW swap]. I tell him: ‘My son, how did this happen?’ And another voice goes: ‘The rest are dead, it’s a good thing he’s alive,’” the woman recalls.
The relatives submitted inquiries to his military commissariat and military unit.
In December 2022, Kartashev was given a year-long suspended sentence under the article on going AWOL. He was found guilty of failing to show up to his military unit twice — the man left the combat zone, unauthorised, and departed for the Rostov region where he is originally from, the court’s press service previously told Mediazona. Despite the sentence, he was re-deployed to the war in Ukraine.
