The Tula Garrison Military Court handed a four-year suspended sentence to Vadim Grachev, a company commander from one of the military units, after finding him guilty of exceeding his official powers with the use of violence. Mediazona drew attention to the court ruling.
The criminal case stemmed from the beating of two conscripts who were carrying out the officer’s assignments in the company office. In court, Grachev admitted guilt but refused to testify, invoking Article 51 of the Russian Constitution, which allows a person not to testify against himself.
According to the pretrial investigation materials, Grachev ordered one of the soldiers to take combat training logs to the unit club. He later found that the order had not been carried out. Investigators said the commander then punched the conscript in the right eye, grabbed him by the head and slammed it against a cabinet five times.
The second episode involved another conscript who, according to the case, had failed to prepare by morning the company memo and nominal lists of the “newly arrived reinforcements”. The officer was said to have kicked him in the chest, punched him in the head five times, then led him to the sleeping quarters, kneed him in the stomach and struck him on the head five more times.
The court treated voluntary compensation for moral harm caused by the crime as a mitigating factor. The verdict also says that Grachev was raised in a single-parent family, is positively described in service records, and has state and departmental awards.
Judging by the text of the ruling, the serviceman remained under a travel restriction order while the investigation was underway.