Soldier sentenced to five years for refusing to fulfill order without weapons

A commander, who refused to fulfill the order because his soldiers did not have weapons, was sentenced to five years in prison.

According to the Kharkiv Human Rights Group, August 12, the Artemivsk city district court of Donetsk region found volunteer of the 30th separate mechanized brigade Ihor Hlushchuk guilty of criminal offense under the Article 402 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

He was sentenced to five years in prison with suspended sentence for one year.

January 29, 2015, battalion commander Hryhorak gave a verbal order to convoy several infantry combat vehicles of the 15th company (whose commander was Hlushchuk) to Debaltseve (Donetsk region). Nobody warned that fighters must have the stand of arms, warm clothes, food, and water. The fighters drove without lights, accompanied by officers.

A few minutes later, the enemy started firing on soldiers using mortars, Grad rockets and multiple rocket launcher systems. After that, chief of staff Holub appeared and said that servicemen should go, but did not say where exactly.

The soldiers asked the commander why they had not been informed they would have a combat mission, as they had no ammunition. Lieutenant Colonel Holub said they were there illegally, since they had not any written order.

The leadership reported that all the necessary would be delivered three days later. Ihor Hlushchuk reported to the leadership that it was impossible to fulfill the order, because they had no weapons, food, personal belongings, so fulfillment of the order would be fatal for the whole company of soldiers. After that, the soldiers returned to the village of Pokrovske, and Hlushchuk was subsequently accused of noncompliance with order. In fact, he saved the lives of 40 soldiers with his actions, but neither the investigation, nor the court took that fact into account.

Now, the volunteer gets ready to appeal against the verdict.