How the harassment started

We got in contact with Elena Shiginova, the wife of Russian serviceman Andrey Tishevsky. He serves in the 3rd Guards Spetsnaz Brigade in the city of Tolyatti.

Shiginova says that her husband has been persecuted by his commanders since June 2018, when they made Andrey the fall guy for a shortage of 260,000 rubles (€2,828) allocated for hot meals.

“My husband had nothing to do with it. I could speculate that the higher-up officers were the ones stealing [the money],” says Elena. The commanders demanded Andrey to pay up: when he refused to do that, the harassment started.

Andrey Tishevsky faced one disciplinary action after another from the command. The soldier challenged those decisions in court. But the commanders continued to stubbornly bully the senior warrant officer.

The military prosecutor’s office responded to his complaints saying that the orders punishing Tishevsky were issued in violation of the law and had to be annulled. In one of the official responses, the military prosecutor confirmed cases of commanders collecting money from servicemen “for [their] own domestic and household needs” (Novaya-Europe has the copy of the document at its disposal).

Even before the persecution began, in 2014-2018, Andrey Tishevsky spent his own money to repair the company’s barracks. His family has kept the receipts from hardware stores. Similar cases have been reported in every division within the 3rd Guards Spetsnaz Brigade.

Tishevsky was later transferred from Tolyatti to Novosibirsk for health reasons. The new command continued to put pressure on the soldier there.

But in the end, Elena and Andrey were able to get justice: the reprimands were annulled while the prosecutor’s office ruled that Tishevsky was in fact being persecuted by his commanders. Currently, the command of the 3rd Guards Spetsnaz Brigade is under review.

However, that wasn’t the end of the story: servicemen are still being made to give up their money with unclear aims, especially since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Furthermore, the persecution of Andrey has only got worse after the war began.

Every little counts

With the beginning of the “special military operation” in Ukraine, the unit command began demanding every serviceman hand over 1,000 rubles (€11) to help with funerals of their fellow soldiers and to assist their families, says Elena. She has an audio recording of this order being made by the command.

The management has another way of making money — contract servicemen that have not been part of the unit for years. The officers withdraw their pay-checks and additional bonuses from a card and transfer them to the command: Elena says that she and her husband know the last names of these servicemen.

In their attempt to get to the truth, Elena and Andrey reached the General Staff of the Russian Defence Ministry. Just before the war, on 18 February 2022, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov allowed Tishevsky to go back to the 3rd Guards Spetsnaz Brigade in his native Tolyatti.

And then the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. Andrey was not supposed to take part in hostilities for health reasons. However, the command disregarded that and pressured him to go to the front line anyway.

After the serviceman refused once again, the acting chief of the unit informed the military police that Tishevsky was faking his illness, Elena says. There was also an attempt to press charges against her husband for dodging the duties of military service, however, the Russian Investigative Committee refused to open the case.

However, that did not last: some time later, Andrey was charged for “failing to comply with orders” because of his refusal to go to the conflict zone. Now the command is using Tishevsky’s case as a means of intimidating other servicemen.

The unit is planning to hold a show trial for Tishevsky, Elena says. He is supposed to “become an example for everyone who refuses to go to the special military operation”, she adds.

We asked the head of the human rights group Citizen. Army. Law Sergey Krivenko to corroborate this story. “The everyday life and relationships in the army seem very realistic here. The money collection, the intimidation — it’s all very similar [to real life],” he says.

The criminal persecution of servicemen who refuse to go to war is quite possible, he clarifies, seeing as the article on “refusal to comply with orders” has been amended in September 2022 to include refusal to take part in hostilities.

Fake heroes

Novaya-Europe has contacted Andrey’s fellow soldier, who asked to refer to him as Igor and confirmed that Andrey was being persecuted — they tried to get him to cover the shortage of money that he wasn’t responsible for.

Andrey refused to pay: afterwards, he started getting harassed and receiving unreasonable reprimands. “The goal was to make him pay. So that no other subordinate decided to fight for their rights,” recalls Igor.

Furthermore, no one knows where the money collected for the funerals goes, Andrey’s colleague says.

“No one knows what it’s spent on. Compensations to relatives of killed soldiers and funeral arrangements are covered by the state.”

Igor himself was deployed to the war zone several times. He was injured twice: the serviceman was supposed to be discharged after the first one, but he was sent to the front once again. Only after getting his second injury was he declared temporarily unfit for service. “Whether you want to or not, you’ll have to go to war,” he says.

Corruption is flourishing in the 3rd Brigade, Igor adds — while on the front line, the commanders have been awarding themselves with medals and submitting reports about their non-existent injuries. The wounded are supposed to receive a big payment — 3 million rubles (€32,673) while the awardees get five additional paychecks.

“We had a commander who headed the 3rd Battalion, Mr. Orlovsky, he now heads the 4th Battalion. He was awarded the Order of Courage. But none of us ever saw him commit any heroic deeds.”

According to Igor, the humanitarian aid bought with soldiers’ money is brought to the unit, what happens to it then is unknown. Most likely, the command sells it for profit, he speculates.

Igor also says that there are cases when mobilised servicemen who get 200,000 rubles (€2,180) monthly and contract servicemen who get 30,000-40,000 rubles (€327-436) end up in the same trenches.

“Sometimes the command sends people out as cannon fodder,” says Igor when asked about what happens at the front. “For example, a group of our scouts made it through an area of Ukrainian defence, fighting their way out. Everyone came out alive — good job! But immediately they sent out a new group to the same area. Where the enemy has already gathered fresh forces. They were ready for us. At that moment, [it would make sense to] strike in another place. But no: our commanders want to ‘build on the success’. And so they [send people to die], and the soldiers end up in a planned ambush.”

According to Igor, the only way to return from the “special military operation” zone today is if you are injured or killed. The soldiers involved in hostilities are not allowed to go on leave.

Novaya-Europe has sent an inquiry asking for a comment to the Russian Defence Ministry.