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‘What difference does it make how I die?’. A Russian soldier got so desperate to leave the army that he attempted suicide. The only unusual part was that he filmed it.
Manage episode 484180879 series 3381925
Two weeks ago, a Russian soldier became so desperate to break his army contract that he attempted suicide — and effectively livestreamed the act. Pavel Stovchan, a 35-year-old contract fighter whose social media profile still reads "Keep working, brothers," had a change of heart about fighting after he was wounded and his father was killed at the front. But when he tried to terminate his contract, citing his state of health and his father’s death, the military hit him with criminal charges. Meduza shares an abridged translation of the independent outlet Okno's report on Stovchan's story.
‘Staying here is a death sentence’
On May 7, 35-year-old contract soldier Pavel Stovchan from Krasnodar recorded what he believed would be his last video. In an attempt to end his life, he swallowed three coin cell batteries on camera. In his farewell message, he placed the blame squarely on one officer: one Captain Toropov, who he accused of blocking his discharge from the army.
I’m in Military Unit No. 61899, where they’re obstructing my access to medical treatment. This is already the second day I haven’t been sent to the infirmary, even though it’s written in the log. They’re also preventing me from going to a pharmacy to buy the medication prescribed by a psychiatrist. Captain Toropov is the one obstructing all of this — he won’t let me go anywhere. So this suicide is entirely and completely his fault.
Stovchan said he he deliberately chose coin cell batteries because they would be difficult to remove from his stomach. He also took an entire pack of loperamide, an anti-diarrheal medicine that causes severe constipation in large doses, and washed it all down with an energy drink.
“When [the batteries] interact with the energy drink, within two to three hours they’ll cause peritonitis, burning through my stomach or intestinal walls. Which will be fatal,” he said.
A few hours later, Stovchan was found unconscious and taken to intensive care. He regained consciousness a day later but was initially unable to speak. “They barely saved him — he almost died,” said his fellow serviceman Sergey (name changed), speaking to Okno. “At first, we didn’t take it seriously — he was still conscious, and he posted the video, so we didn’t sound the alarm right away. Then the medics took forever to get there. We thought he wouldn’t make it. And even now, Toropov won’t let him leave the unit. Staying here is a death sentence.”
A few days later, Stovchan was transferred to a psychiatric hospital in the city of Podolsk. He can speak now, though with difficulty. His first words in his interview with Okno were that he truly doesn’t want to live. “Why would I?” he said. “My father died last year in horrific circumstances. They wouldn’t let me leave the front either. What do I have to live for? What difference does it make how I die?”
Stovchan said he's certain the army will still try to send him back to serve in the same unit. "They’ll send me back to the slaughter, to storm positions. I’m not going to die like that. I’d rather do it myself," he told Okno.
A one-way ticket
When Stovchan signed his one-year contract in September 2023, he explained, it was under pressure from debt collectors and court bailiffs. “I owed a lot of money, they were pressuring me — of course it wasn’t voluntary, wasn't my choice,” he said.
Stovchan expressed anger at pro-war media outlets that have claimed he signed the contract “in search of easy money” and that previous injuries he sustained in late 2023 were intentional. “That’s a lie, obviously,” he said. “What ‘easy money’ is there [on the front line]? They haven’t paid me anything since last summer. I haven’t received a single ruble for my injuries. And I don’t even want the money anymore — I just want to be released!”
‘Just look at the diagnoses’
On November 14, 2023, a year and a half before his suicide attempt, doctors diagnosed Stovchan with a concussion and an injured right hand. He was discharged from the hospital and sent back to his unit’s infirmary. A day later, when the painkillers wore off, he collapsed.
“My legs gave out. I crawled to my bunk and lay there for three days, unable to move. Only after that did they finally let the medics see me. Commander Toropov screamed at me that I was faking,” Stovchan told Okno. “But just look at how many diagnoses there are for herniated discs.”
A medical exam confirmed five herniated discs and other spinal damage. Stovchan was declared temporarily unfit for service and given a referral for surgery.
“The surgery wasn’t urgent — they scheduled it for about 20 days later. I brought the paperwork back to my unit. When Toropov saw it, he called me a fraud. Meanwhile, I could barely move, even on painkillers,” Stovchan said.
That same month, he and his mother received an official notification of his father’s death. “Right before the surgery, the court officially declared my father dead. I’d already decided: I wasn’t going back. His unit mates told me he was blown to pieces. I had a breakdown. They gave me a psychiatric diagnosis. Then I had the surgery. I was given recovery time and reassigned category ‘G’ [temporarily unfit],” he said.
How Russia forces people to fight
He then approached the military investigative committee with his full medical file, seeking termination of his contract. “I didn’t care on what grounds — either medical, or based on Putin’s decree No. 580, which says they can’t send me back to a combat zone after a close relative dies,” Stovchan explained. “I laid it all out: ‘I’m not going back.’ And they said, ‘We’ve already opened a criminal case against you for going AWOL.’”
According to Stovchan, officers and investigators told him he could face 10 years in prison for refusing to fight. “I didn’t even care anymore, but my mother begged me: ‘Take all the documents, push for a discharge on medical grounds — you can barely walk as it is,’” he recalled. “I brought everything back — the originals, the category G certificate — and they assigned me to my dead father’s unit. That’s when I broke down. I honestly don’t know what else I can do to avoid going back. That’s why I did what I did.”
Stovchan said the command of his new unit not only intends to send him back to the front but has also threatened to “wipe him out.” He previously posted video appeals accusing his commanders of trying to “eliminate” him, and of failing to pay wages or compensate him for injuries. His fellow soldiers said he’s far from the only unit member seeking a discharge — but that nobody has succeeded.
“You think he’s the only one? One in five guys here tries to kill themselves. Half succeed,” said Sergey. “They just don’t all film it like Pasha did. Some die quietly — and there’s not even an investigation. Maybe the family raises a fuss, maybe there are a couple of posts. And then it’s all forgotten.”
‘They were ordered not to record suicide attempts’
In April 2024, it emerged that a contract soldier with the 99th Regiment in Saratov had attempted suicide. Online commenters speculated that he had been pressured into signing a contract shortly beforehand. His commander later announced that the soldier would face criminal charges for self-harm.
A contract serviceman from Novosibirsk who attempted suicide in 2023 told Okno that military medical boards routinely refuse to document suicide attempts.
“I was still a conscript when they forced me to sign a contract in April 2023, while stationed in Ulyanovsk,” he said. “Before we were deployed, I tried to take my own life. I ended up first in a military hospital, then in a psychiatric facility, where I spent six weeks. The doctor promised me, ‘Your military service is over. With your diagnosis of F60.3 [Borderline personality disorder], you’ll be discharged after the medical board.’”
But the promised commission never happened. “They brought me to the unit's infirmary and posted guards at the door, but the military-medical commission was never scheduled,” the serviceman said. “They told me to pack my bags. There was a medic with us, so I thought we were going to the commission. But instead, they put us on a military helicopter and flew us straight to the border — to the ‘Luhansk People’s Republic’ [in occupied Ukraine].”
The soldier's family has filed repeated complaints with the military prosecutor's office. “How can someone with a psychiatric diagnosis be kept in a combat zone and handed a weapon?” the serviceman said. “But all we get are boilerplate responses. No one sees a problem. They've simply been ordered not to record suicide attempts — because if they did, they’d have to discharge every fifth soldier.”
Desperate measures
Cover photo: Stanislav Krasilnikov / RIA Novosti / Sputnik / IMAGO / SNA / Scanpix / LETA
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