Sergey Vakulenko, a 37-year-old resident of the village of Pavlovka in Primorsky Region, was mobilized on September 21, 2022, and joined the 114th military unit Regiment 24776. He participated in the war with Ukraine for 2.5 years. During his second vacation in July 2024, the man learned that his brother Maxim had died in the war.
Vakulenko refused to return to the front until he buried his brother, his wife Elena told ASTRA. Maxim was buried on February 28, 2025, and on April 29, Sergei and his wife were beaten by military police officers, put them both in a car and taken to military unit 24776, dropping Elena off on the way.
“The military police took him, and they rushed to fight me. They beat me near the entrance, shoved me into the car with him, but dropped me off on the way. They did not provide any documents, no form,” said the wife of the mobilized man.
Vakulenko was declared SOC (unauthorized abandonment of the unit). In August 2025, the court found the man guilty under Part 5 of Article 337 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, the military man received 6 years of probation with a probation period of 3 years.
The court ordered Sergey to serve on the territory of a military unit. Elena, citing a lawyer, says that her husband could not be sent to the front, as he was considered socially significant due to the loss of his brother in the war. Lyubov Vakulenko’s widow lost her first son in July 2024, and in May 2025, her 22-year-old grandson Ivan Kolesnik, died in the war in Ukraine.
In the military unit, Sergei met three colleagues: Evgeny Alyoshin, Viktor Zhurbaev and Konstantin Kotyrev (all three are in the same photo with Vakulenko). In September 2025, Elena and Sergey had a wedding attended by these soldiers. It later turned out that they had found the stolen bank card of a colleague who died in Ukraine.
In November 2025, the deputy head of the unit, Major Gaifulin, summoned Vakulenko and forced him to sign a contract with the Russian Defense Ministry. In December, Gaifulin again summoned Vakulenko with an offer to travel to Ukraine “for one week.” Vakulenko refused and turned to a lawyer.
However, on December 26, the military police seized a drunk Vakulenko from a store and took him to a military unit. There, the man was beaten and his bank card was taken away, from which 50,000 rubles were withdrawn. Elena believes that Alyoshin, Zhurbaev and Kotyrev did it.
“I accuse these subjects of fraud (withdrawing funds from her husband’s card), beating, extortion, and the disappearance of her husband (possibly murder). They also threatened my life repeatedly,” says Elena Vakulenko.
On January 2, 2026, Sergey Vakulenko ut his veins, although he had never attempted suicide before, Elena says. At that time, checks were carried out in his 114th regiment, but they were related to the fact that in the 143rd (military unit 21634) regiment, a serviceman had his eye gouged out and was raped with phalluses, as ASTRA wrote.
When the checks began, Vakulenko was hidden in a medical room, and from there he was taken out unconscious, after which he disappeared. Elena was told about this by a former classmate who serves in the same military unit. On January 21, Sergey contacted his wife for the last time.
Elena says that since then, military police officers have been coming to her regularly, asking where her husband has disappeared and threatening her with violence. The staff also visited Vakulenko’s mother, and this visit was captured on hidden video footage.
“I’ve already lost two, he’s got reports and that’s it, but they’re sending him, what is this? I lost my son and my grandson, I can’t get a body for 9 months. Did you bury your son 8 months after his death and now this? I wouldn’t even have known, I wouldn’t have told,” the mother of the missing Vakulenko told the visiting staff.
In response, they began to assure that since Vakulenko had lost his brother in the war, he was socially significant, so if they found him, they would not send him to the war. Lyubov Vakulenko did not believe it. Sergey Vakulenko’s mother and wife appealed to the Investigative Committee and the Presidential Administration.
