Kremlin fears spike in crime from returning Ukraine war veterans

Sergey Kiriyenko, deputy head of Vladimir Putin's administration, stated during a July meeting at the Kremlin that Russian war veterans "poorly adapt" to civilian life after returning from Ukraine and that many of the convict recruits commit violent crimes upon their return, the independent Russian portal Meduza reported, as cited by ISW on Friday.

One of the sources present at the meeting told Meduza that Kiriyenko made it clear that "quite a lot" of veterans would return from the war in Ukraine and that the increase in crime committed by them could, in the future, cause dissatisfaction, fear, or aggression towards this category of citizens.

Kiriyenko emphasized that the return of veterans from Ukraine would be completely different from the returns after the Soviet-Afghan War or World War II because the Soviet Union suffered fewer losses in Afghanistan and because Soviet society was more broadly mobilized and affected by World War II than by the war in Ukraine.

The portal's source revealed that Kiriyenko characterized Russian society as "watching the war in Ukraine only on television" and unprepared to "understand and accept" the veterans. "Russian officials express concern that the returning veterans will form criminal gangs if they become disillusioned after returning from the front," Meduza noted.

During the meeting at the Kremlin, no specific solutions were presented to mitigate the anticipated problems resulting from the war started by Russia, it was added. "The Kremlin likely gave little consideration to the long-term social consequences of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine," concluded ISW.