Ukraine war crime trial: A Russian soldier takes the stand for an execution
Dmitriy Kurashov is the first Russian soldier to stand trial in Ukraine over a battlefield execution.
"Dmitriy Kurashov is the first Russian soldier to stand trial in Ukraine for an alleged battlefield execution."
His journey to that miserable stretch of front where Hodniuk died – to becoming Stalker – began in an orphanage in Gremyachinsk, a decayed old coal town about a thousand miles from Moscow on the way to Siberia. Orphaned at birth, Kurashov was raised in a group home. As a teenager, he got into a fight with a police officer and was imprisoned for assault. He served four years, but on his release he had no family, friends or place to live, so he became a vagrant. He began robbing summer houses and shops for food and money, he said, resulting in another imprisonment, this time in a remote penal colony alongside men serving life sentences for the some of the most brutal crimes.
Six months into that sentence, representatives from the Russian military came to the penal colony and told the convicts they had an opportunity to turn a new page in their lives. Kurashov still had five years to serve. "They told us you can have a clean slate, become a clean person," he said. "Just sign this contract and go."
"Go" meant to the "special military operation" in Ukraine. Kurashov knew little about it, he said, but he thought anything was better than five more years in the penal colony or being turned out into the streets at the end of his sentence. So he signed, and was taken immediately to a training camp in occupied territory in Ukraine.
Another proof of the Marxism idea that human nature is determined by material conditions surrounded it. There is no "bad russians", "bad muslims", "bad israelis", etc., there are only "people who had been pushed down by life and rejected by society, who were outside of society"...
I dont believe in determinism. This guy was dealt a bad hand his whole life, no doubt - that can provide context for his choices but it doesn't excuse them. He was in a squad with three other Russians that were all ex-inmates also, they were surprised when he executed this Ukrainian that surrendered. There are hundreds of thousands of ex-inmates fighting for Russia, not all of them are committing warcrimes.
I'm glad the journalist included his backstory. But there are absolutely people who lack empathy and could care less who they kill, regardless of background and upbringing.
This guy will face life in prison in Ukraine if found guilty, and will very likely be traded to Russia in a POW swap in future. His victim and their family gets no chance at a happy ending.
Going through brutal things will destroy your empathy. I am fine with this guy standing trial for his crime but I don't think it was really "his fault" at the end of the day after how he grew up.
Some people have strong character and they can turn out fine no matter how you treat them. Some people, you can give every opportunity in the world to, and they're still going to turn towards the dark. For most people, it's down to circumstances.
That's why it is important to create good circumstances. The schools, the police, the meeting places where people hang out, the shops and the structure of the economy. It all has to serve the good, it has to be alive with life. Because the people who are in it will be molded.
He made a terrible crime and he is guilty, no doubts. I'm not trying to exceuse him! My point was that the problem is not in "bad nations", cause I'm very often see arguments like "all russians are war criminals", "all muslim are terrorists", "all Israelis are doing genocide", etc. For me the problem is not even in propaganda, because it looks like this russian did not know about the conflict at all three months before the event. The problem for me is there are too musch people on the planet, that are living on the edge and that are rejected by society. And to reduce an amount of people that are having lack of empathy we as a spice should work on inequality instead of again and again jumping into discussion what nation is bad and what nation is good.