- MOSCOW -- They forged a hard-as-nails
image in places such as Stalingrad, Afghanistan and Chechnya, but today's
Russian soldier is vulnerable to a new enemy. Figures leaked yesterday
show that 80 Russian servicemen, including 24 officers, have taken their
own lives this year.
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- It is estimated that between 20 and 50 per cent of all
non-combat deaths in the Russian military are now suicides. "Today,
suicide accounts for more than half of the total number of deaths in the
armed forces," claimed a military source yesterday.
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- The disturbing figures follow an admission from Sergey
Ivanov, the Defence Minister, earlier this year that 337 Russian soldiers
died last year as a result of "crimes and accidents". He admitted
that 35 per cent of those deaths were straight suicides and analysts say
that the problem of suicide in the Russian army appears to be getting worse.
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- The large number of officers who are choosing to take
their own lives is said to be of particular concern to the Russian Defence
Ministry. The leaked figures for the first four months of this year will
punch a gaping hole through President Vladimir Putin's oft-stated aim of
reviving pride in the Russian army and of encouraging a militaristic, patriotic
society.
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- They will also make it harder for the military recruiters
to do their job; the wealthy and well-educated already do their best to
bribe their way out of mandatory two-year military service. The authorities
rely on television to make a soldier's life look glamorous. Hours of programmes
glorifying the deeds of derring-do accomplished by muscle-bound, machine-gun-toting
Russian special forces are regularly broadcast and there are plans to launch
a new channel, Star, devoted exclusively to military matters.
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- Human rights groups say that the reality is not so glamorous.
Russian soldiers, they claim, are being driven to suicide by a combination
of brutal bullying, or "hazing", by older soldiers, by appalling
living conditions and by malnutrition.
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- Human Rights Watch has repeatedly spoken out against
the harsh treatment of new recruits. "The state simply has no right,
in sending hundreds of thousands of young people into the army every year,
to treat their lives and health in such a light-hearted and often criminal
way," said Alexander Petrov, the Moscow office's deputy director,
at the release of a report into the matter. "The army is poor and
the army is corrupt."
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- Mr Petrov claimed that it was taking its toll on the
army's combat effectiveness. "Everyone who has been in Chechnya will
be familiar with the picture - especially at the start of the first and
second wars - of a first-year conscript at a checkpoint, bedraggled, with
bruises and scabs and a hungry look in his eyes. Clearly, his thoughts
are not on doing his duty," he said.
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- Stories about soldiers being savagely beaten by their
older peers or officers are common fare in the Russian media. Earlier this
year, Andrei Magarin, 22, a conscript paratrooper, shot himself in a park
in Ulyanovsk, the town where Lenin was born. Investigators suspect he was
bullied; he was about to be discharged from the army.
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- A few weeks ago, an officer, Colonel Andrey Shtakal,
shot himself in the head in Yekaterinburg in front of his peers; an investigation
has begun.
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- And in January, the harsh way in which conscripts are
routinely treated by their superiors was highlighted when 50 draftees were
abandoned by their officers on a series of icy airfields without proper
clothing or shelter. One soldier died and scores were taken to hospital
with pneumonia.
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- President Putin was furious. "If we continue to
see such things in the future, how can we talk about strengthening of [the
army[," he said.
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- * A court in Moscow sentenced four Chechen men to prison
terms of at least 15 years yesterday for carrying out a car bombing in
2002 outside a McDonald's restaurant. A fifth man, who prosecutors said
organised the group, was ordered into a psychiatric hospital. The blast
in the capital killed one person and injured eight.
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- The court sentenced Alikhan Mezhiyev to 22 years in prison,
his brother Akhyad Mezhiyev to 18 years, Aslan Murdalov to 20 years and
Khampasha Sobraliyev to 15 years. Aslanbek Khaskhanov was ordered to be
detained in hospital.
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- © 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=516008
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