On March 11, the Marhamat District Court in Andijan Region sentenced a 26-year-old Uzbek citizen, D.M., to prison for participating in the Russia-Ukraine war on the Russian side. According to court documents reviewed by the press, D.M. signed a 3-month contract with the Russian Armed Forces on October 5, 2022, for a specified fee and entered military service.
The defendant fully confessed to the charges in court and expressed sincere remorse for his actions. He stated that he had come to Russia for work in 2021 and, until September 2022, worked various jobs with his father. On October 5, 2022, he signed a contract to participate in the military actions between Russia and Ukraine and arrived in Luhansk for a 3-month period.
D.M. explained in court that while in Moscow, he and his father had a dispute with a Russian individual, leading to their detention by police and placement in a holding cell. They were allegedly told they would be released if they signed a contract to participate in the military actions. Feeling helpless, he agreed and signed the 3-month contract.
The defendant underwent combat training, weapons handling, and first aid instruction at military training fields in Luhansk. During the hostilities, he purportedly worked as a cook in a kitchen among Russian Federation soldiers. After 3 months of involvement in the military actions, upon the contract's expiration, he returned to Moscow and resumed his work.
D.M. was detained on April 22, 2025, while entering Kazakhstan from Moscow for document processing. In court, he requested a punishment not involving imprisonment, arguing that he was forced to go to war, did not use his weapon, and only worked as a cook.
The court found D.M. guilty of committing a crime under Part 1 of Article 154 of the Criminal Code (Mercenarism). Applying Article 57 of the Criminal Code (Imposition of a Lighter Punishment), he was sentenced to 3 years of imprisonment to be served in a general regime colony. D.M. stated in court, "I did not know that participating in the military actions between Russia and Ukraine was a crime."
Source: www.gazeta.uz