Sergey Savchenko was tied to a tree in freezing temperatures not to extract a confession or military secrets. According to him, the overseers needed a simpler outcome: for the mobilized soldier to agree to return wherever he was sent. Before this, Savchenko had served as a medic, evacuating the wounded. After refusing to take up arms, he found himself in an illegal detention facility in Zaytsevo, where he spent 72 days, sat in a metal cage, and endured hours-long beatings. From this basement, the road led not to court or home, but back to the troops.

Savchenko's story was meticulously reconstructed by Mediazona based on his account, documents, correspondence, and information about fellow servicemen. While this does not allow for independent verification of every scene, a significant part of his testimony aligns with reports from other soldiers and relatives that emerged starting in autumn 2022. The same place names, methods of pressure, and routes for returning to the front were repeatedly mentioned in various sources long before his interview was published.

The word 'nullification' (obnuleniye) encompasses several different practices. Sometimes it refers to the killing of one's own serviceman, sometimes to an order to send an undesirable soldier on a nearly hopeless mission, and sometimes to a threat used by a commander to extort money or obedience. Mixing these cases is dangerous: an unconfirmed account and a judicially established murder would then appear equally proven. Therefore, this material is structured not around an impactful term, but around levels of corroboration.

How to Verify Crimes Within a Closed Army

Investigations into violence against Russian servicemen face a particular problem: almost all primary witnesses are dependent on the very system they accuse. A fellow serviceman risks punishment for disclosure or unauthorized absence, a relative learns what's happening through brief phone calls, and an official document often records only the final status — missing in action, killed while performing a task, or having left the unit. The lack of independent access does not make testimony false, but it limits the conclusions that can be drawn from it.

In this article, the strongest cases are considered to be those where the account is corroborated by documents, other witnesses, a consistent chronology, or judicial proceedings. Publications by Ukrainian special services and isolated anonymous reports may indicate directions for verification, but are not used as proof of a system in themselves. Where a Russian court has established the elements of a crime, we speak of a confirmed episode; where only a family's account exists, we speak of an accusation requiring investigation.

This approach inevitably leaves some potential crimes outside its scope. However, it protects the material from the main error of previous texts: turning an emotionally plausible detail into an established fact. The scale here is determined not by the sum of the most horrific claims, but by the repetition of independently described mechanisms — isolation, violence, forced return to assault missions, extortion, and the concealment of death circumstances.

Zaytsevo: The Basement That Survived Public Exposure

The first mass reports of closed detention facilities for Russian servicemen emerged after the failed offensive in the Kharkiv direction and the announcement of mobilization. In November 2022, ASTRA reported approximately 300 mobilized soldiers held in Zaytsevo, in Luhansk Oblast, for refusing to return to combat. 'Vazhnye Istorii' (Important Stories) listed other locations — Perevalsk, Rubizhne, Zavitne Bazhannya, Staromlynivka, and Dokuchaevsk. Even then, it was not about a single random pit attached to a unit, but about several facilities in different areas.

In December 2022, Mediazona described the journey of mobilized soldier Dmitry Panov. He was brought to Zaytsevo in early November; dozens of people were held in the basement of the local House of Culture, including those who had survived the retreat from Kharkiv Oblast and refused to return to the front line. Soldiers lived for weeks in the damp premises. The very name of the institution — 'center for restoring combat capability and mental health' — masked the absence of any legally prescribed procedure.

Savchenko's story shows that public exposure did not stop the practice. In his account, Zaytsevo functions as a sorting point: people are isolated, deprived of communication, beaten, and then transferred in batches to units. He described overseers, shifts, and the involvement of command representatives. Some details cannot be confirmed by external documents, but the geography, the purpose of the basement, and the method of returning refuseniks to the front align with earlier testimonies.

In December 2023, The Insider, citing ASTRA, reported on a contract soldier from Vladimir Oblast who ended up in Zaytsevo and returned home dead in a sealed coffin. According to his wife, relatives were warned not to open the coffin, otherwise they might lose their payments. This publication does not establish the cause of death or the responsibility of a specific individual, but it reveals another side of the closed system: the family receives the body, but verifying what happened between detention and death is almost impossible.

By July 2026, ASTRA stated that it had identified 29 illegal detention facilities for Russian servicemen. This is an editorial count, not a registry confirmed by an independent commission or court decisions. The facilities might have operated at different times, and the degree of documentation for each case varies. But even with this caveat, the map is important: reports can no longer be reduced to a single basement, a single commander, or the chaos of the first months of mobilization.

Two Circuits of Punishment

The Russian state has created a formal mechanism for prosecuting those who refuse to serve. After the start of mobilization, articles concerning unauthorized absence, desertion, and failure to comply with an order were tightened. According to Mediazona's calculations, by the end of May 2025, military courts had received cases against 20,662 individuals, with 17,721 already having received sentences. In 2025, garrison courts, according to data from the Judicial Department, handed down real prison terms to 8,274 defendants across all criminal articles — a record number for the available period.

On paper, it is the court that should decide whether a serviceman has committed a crime. However, in the occupied territories, a second circuit operates — immediate informal punishment. Someone caught after leaving their unit might be sent to a 'pit' (яма), and then returned to their unit before any formal proceedings. A refusenik might be held for weeks without communication or forced to agree to an assault mission. This circuit does not replace criminal prosecution: the same person can first endure a basement, then be sent back to the front, and after escaping, face a case for unauthorized absence.

This creates a managerial effect. The judicial system punishes slowly and requires documentation; a basement or the threat of 'nullification' acts immediately. A commander gains the ability to return a person to active duty without explaining the decision to an independent body. A formally illegal practice thus becomes functionally integrated into the replenishment of assault units. There is no data to conclude a single top-down order, but the repetition of the same scheme in different locations shows that the absence of an order does not prevent the mechanism from reproducing itself.

When a Threat Becomes Murder

The most serious allegations — concerning the executions of fellow servicemen — require a different standard of proof. An intercepted audio recording or an anonymous message from a relative may be a reason for verification, but not definitive confirmation. Russian authorities almost never publish statistics on such crimes, and the bodies of those killed at the front, along with the 'missing in action' status, allow for the concealment of death circumstances. Therefore, the exact number of 'nullified' individuals is unknown today.

In October 2025, 'Verstka' created a database of 101 alleged participants in extrajudicial killings. Journalists relied on testimonies from fellow servicemen and relatives, videos, correspondence, open profiles, and judicial data. The scale of the database is important, but its entries are not equivalent to guilty verdicts. In some cases, there are several independent testimonies and a criminal case; in others, only a single family appeal. A correct reading of the database is not that the guilt of 101 individuals has been proven, but that similar accusations arise in numerous units and regions.

The case of the 6th Motorized Rifle Division shows that some accounts can withstand judicial scrutiny. According to the investigation, in 2023, seven servicemen suspected of drug use were tortured, then led into a basement, attacked with grenades, and the survivors were finished off. In 2025, the Southern District Military Court sentenced Colonel Yevgeny Malyshko and Senior Sergeant Roman Timonin to 20 and 18 years in a penal colony, respectively. Proceedings against Warrant Officer Yevgeny Chukanov were separated; the court's case file confirms the movement of the case but does not provide grounds to attribute an already effective verdict to him.

This is a pivotal episode. This is not about a Ukrainian intelligence intercept or an anonymous Telegram channel: a Russian military court recognized the torture and murder of subordinates as proven. At the same time, the case does not prove the existence of a centralized execution program throughout the entire army. It confirms a narrower, but grave conclusion: command authority, isolation, and frontline impunity could indeed transform into a mechanism for collective reprisal within a regular unit.

The Economy of Fear

In testimonies about 'nullifications,' not only discipline but also money increasingly appears. The threat of sending someone on an assault mission, leaving them without evacuation, or declaring them AWOL becomes a method of extortion. Payments for contracts and injuries have created a large cash flow that passes through individuals dependent on commanders, medical services, and document processing. Where decisions about transfer, leave, or evacuation are opaque, official authority turns into a commodity.

Savchenko told Mediazona about bribes at various stages of service — for placement in a medical unit, the opportunity to avoid a dangerous assignment, and processing documents after an injury. These amounts relate to his personal story and cannot automatically describe a tariff for the entire army. However, Verstka's 2025 investigation recorded similar accusations in other units: commanders were suspected of demanding a share of payments, vehicles, and regular 'tribute,' and refusal to pay was accompanied by beatings or the threat of being sent on a dangerous mission.

The case of Alexey Marushchenko already demonstrated such a connection in a Russian verdict. On August 4, 2026, a court in Belgorod sentenced the founder of PMC 'Yastreb' to 18 years in a strict-regime penal colony. According to Kommersant, the charges included defrauding approximately 90 servicemen, extortion, kidnappings, torture, and organizing murder. Marushchenko pleaded guilty and entered into a pre-trial agreement. This process is not related to Zaytsevo and does not prove accusations against any specific brigade, but it confirms the model itself: armed authority over soldiers was used simultaneously for coercion and financial gain.

Why the Mechanism Reproduces Itself

A written order with a single name is not always necessary for a system to emerge. A stable set of incentives is sufficient. A serviceman cannot freely terminate their contract; leaving carries a multi-year prison sentence; units constantly need people; a commander is responsible for task execution and gains almost complete control over subordinates in a combat zone. A complaint goes through agencies that are far away, and punishment for a complaint can follow immediately.

Closed territories and a deficit of independent investigations reinforce this order. Relatives receive information from fellow servicemen in fragments. A disappearance can be documented as unauthorized absence, a death as a combat loss, and violence as disciplinary action. Even when a case is opened, it often concerns an exceptionally cruel episode and does not answer the question of who allowed an illegal detention facility to operate for months.

At the same time, this opacity cannot be turned into a license for any assertion. Initial publications about the 25th and 155th brigades contain accounts of blocking detachments and mass executions, but there is insufficient independent confirmation to attribute these practices as established to these units. The previous figure of 13 survivors out of 40 refuseniks is also unconfirmed. And the assertion that materials have already been submitted to the International Criminal Court cannot be used without a document or statement from the court itself.

Removing such details does not weaken the investigation. On the contrary, the proven picture remains grim even without them: dozens of described detention facilities, thousands of criminal cases against those who refused to serve, repeated testimonies of torture and extortion, and several processes where Russian courts established murders and violence against servicemen by their own commanders.

A System — But Not the One Convenient to Imagine

Open data does not allow us to assert that the Russian Ministry of Defense issued a single order to create basements and kill refuseniks. They show something else: the state has created an environment in which illegal coercion solves a practical problem — returning people to the front, suppressing complaints, and sometimes enriching those who control their fate. When one basement becomes public, others appear; when families complain, a serviceman might be transferred or sent back into an assault; when a crime does reach court, responsibility usually remains at the level of the perpetrators.

Therefore, the 'nullification system' is not the precise name of a single department or unit. It is a recurring mechanism that combines formal criminal pressure, informal prisons, forced assault missions, corruption, and rare but judicially confirmed reprisals. Its scale cannot be honestly expressed by a single figure, and each personal episode requires separate verification.

The most important conclusion follows not from the single most horrific story, but from their sequence. Zaytsevo became known in 2022, but four years later, journalists continued to find new detention facilities and new cases. Russian courts punished individual commanders, yet the front's need for controllable and disenfranchised reinforcements has not disappeared. As long as refusing to fight means choosing between a penal colony, a basement, and returning to an assault mission, violence remains not a breakdown of discipline, but one of the ways to manage it.