In one recent example from St. Petersburg, two men were arrested on charges of smuggling about 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of cocaine from Peru, worth roughly $30 million, in the roof of a container filled with more than 5,000 cases of mangoes..... The charges were dropped after the two signed contracts to serve as riflemen in an assault company, the court said.
Local papers nationwide are full of cases of suspected murderers, rapists and thieves who are headed off to war after signing contracts instead of facing trial.
"They can kill people or rob a bank or commit any other crime and then go to the front,” said Ruslan Leviev, a Russian military analyst.
Olga Romanova, the head of Russia Behind Bars, a nongovernmental organization that defends prisoners’ rights, said that the Russian state was severing the connection between crime and punishment, which could have dire long-term consequences on crime rates.