No matter how strongly we, as an anti-war and anti-Putin community, condemn those Russians who supported the war and even went to fight — whether because of their own shortsightedness, under the influence of state propaganda, or for some other reason — even we feel a strong sense of empathy when we hear stories like this.

And the story of Alexey Olegovich Fomenko, a serviceman of the 7th Military Base, born on May 19, 2005, is exactly one of those cases.

Fomenko serves at the 7th Military Base, military unit 09332. According to published information, the 77th Separate Motor Rifle Regiment, military unit 03387, is part of this base within the 49th Combined Arms Army.

While staying in the medical company, Alexey agreed to cooperate with the military police and help identify people involved in selling weapons on the black market.

At first glance, this seemed like a straightforward task: a serviceman agrees to help combat illegal arms trafficking within the army.

But Alexey could hardly have imagined how his own fate would unfold.

According to him, some time later, Rasul Guseinovich Gadzhiev, commander of the military police platoon of the 77th Separate Motor Rifle Regiment, began pressuring him and demanding that he give false testimony against his fellow servicemen and friends.

Alexey says:

“On multiple occasions, military police platoon commander Rasul Gadzhiev summoned me to his office so that I would give false and dishonest testimony against my friends.”

He refused.

And this is exactly where that empathy begins. A person may have been shortsighted enough to believe state propaganda, may have ended up in this war and made what we consider an enormous mistake — but he may still retain a sense of honor and refuse to falsely accuse his own comrades, even when the demand comes from someone who holds power over him.

According to Fomenko, after his refusal, the pressure escalated into beatings.

Then came what he describes as outright abuse and torture.

On February 28, 2026, Alexey says, he was forcibly taken from the medical company and brought to the military police premises.

There, according to him, two of Gadzhiev’s subordinates subjected him to sexual violence. Fomenko names one of these men as Gazimagomed Akhmedovich Gitinmagomedov, born on May 4, 2004, who is described in the published account as Gadzhiev’s nephew.

Fomenko describes what happened in extremely disturbing terms:

“As soon as we reached the office, they threw me onto the floor right by the door, as if I were some kind of object. Then they began committing violent acts against me with a bottle inserted into my rectum. How am I supposed to live after this?”

Before that, according to available information, another method of pressure had also been used against Alexey. Intimate videos of him and his wife were allegedly found on his personal phone, and he says he was threatened that they would be sent to everyone he knew if he refused to cooperate and give the testimony demanded from him.

But even after beatings, humiliation, blackmail and sexual violence, Alexey, according to his account, still refused to falsely accuse his fellow servicemen.

And here his personal sense of honor deserves recognition.

What followed was an almost standard story for today’s Russia: a basement and de facto captivity.

After the incident, Alexey says, he was taken to Donetsk and held in a basement for around 10 days without water or food.

According to the published information, he was released only after FSB officers intervened.

At this point, the Russian state begins to resemble an absurd construction: representatives of one security structure, according to the serviceman’s allegations, abduct him, beat him, subject him to sexual violence and keep him in a basement, while representatives of another security agency have to free him.

After his release, Fomenko began filing complaints with various state authorities.

One would expect that when a person reports being forcibly taken from a medical unit, beaten, sexually assaulted, blackmailed and unlawfully held in a basement, and demands an investigation into specific servicemen, this would trigger an immediate response.

But according to Alexey, no meaningful reaction followed.

He also appealed to the Investigative Committee, but according to his account, he was received more than coldly: officials spoke to him almost as if he himself were the aggressor. In the end, he received neither real protection nor any visible restoration of justice.

And this is worth emphasizing as one of the striking patterns of contemporary Russia: far too often, the very institutions that are legally supposed to restore justice instead devote themselves to consistently ignoring it.

Moreover, according to Fomenko, the story did not end after his release.

He claims that the man he accuses of participating in the sexual violence has been telling Alexey’s fellow servicemen the details of what was done to him.

As if the violence itself had not been enough.

Now what he endured is being turned into yet another instrument of humiliation.

Alexey is now trying to appeal directly to the President of Russia and Supreme Commander-in-Chief. He says that the people he accuses of abuse have been contacting the command at his current place of service and spreading the details of what happened.

Judging by his appeal, his mental state is already critical.

Fomenko says:

“My nerves are already at the breaking point. If I end my life by suicide, I ask that the military police platoon, Magomed Rasul Gadzhiev and all his accomplices be held responsible.”

One detail should be noted separately: the published description names the commander as Rasul Guseinovich Gadzhiev, while this quotation refers to “Magomed Rasul Gadzhiev.” This discrepancy in the name must be preserved and verified separately rather than silently corrected on behalf of the author of the appeal.

What we see before us is a man who, by his own account, is on the verge of a nervous breakdown and suicide because of the violence he endured and the complete impunity of those he accuses.

But there is another detail in this horrific story that cannot be ignored.

Even after everything that happened, Alexey says that he is not prepared to abandon his participation in the so-called “special military operation.”

And this is something we condemn unequivocally.

Because if this soldier had applied his sense of honor, principle and ability to recognize injustice more broadly, and had done so earlier — before the system created by the state reached him personally — perhaps he would have understood one simple thing.

The very people whom he now accuses of sadism and sophisticated violence — if his account is confirmed — did not appear out of nowhere.

They were produced by a particular system.

A system in which human dignity is worth nothing, force replaces law, and a person can be declared an enemy, a traitor, a Nazi or an aggressor, after which almost any violence against that person can be treated as, if not officially authorized, then practically permissible.

Fomenko saw this system from the inside only when it turned directly against him.

But this same logic has been applied to vast numbers of other people for many years.

And what is particularly terrifying is that the same moral construction lies at the heart of the war itself: first a person or an entire nation is declared an enemy, a Nazi or a threat, and then people persuade themselves that acts which would normally be recognized as crimes are somehow permissible against them.

This is why the tragedy of Alexey Fomenko lies not only in the fact that a man who trusted the state and went to war has, by his own account, himself become the victim of horrific violence by representatives of that same state machine.

The tragedy is also that even after the basement, the beatings, the sexual violence, the blackmail, the humiliation and the indifference of the law-enforcement system, he is still not prepared to take the final logical step.

To understand that the problem may not lie only with individual Gadzhievs and their subordinates.

The problem lies in the machine itself — a machine in which people like this are given power over others, violence becomes a working method, and a victim is forced to appeal directly to the President because every institution between the victim and the highest authority is either unable or unwilling to protect him.

And if a person is capable of showing enough courage to refuse to falsely accuse his fellow servicemen even after torture, one can only hope that one day he will find the same courage to look at the situation more broadly — and ask himself: whom and what does he continue to serve?

Source: Telegram channel “Don’t Expect Good News”
https://t.me/ne_zhdi_novosti/6975