Conscripts face hell of life in Russian army

MOSCOW - Russia's top military prosecutor has shocked the country by revealing that 46 soldiers - the size of an average platoon - died last week in non-combat situations.

Several soldiers had to be shot by their own comrades to halt drunken and violent rampages, eight committed suicide and two others tried to kill themselves but failed.

Russians have long known that their armed forces are ravaged by appalling brutality, crime and bullying, but these latest revelations from General Alexander Savenkov have hit home particularly hard.

His outburst has also been interpreted as a damaging and personal attack on Defence Minister Sergey Ivanov, a hot favourite to succeed President Vladimir Putin in 2008.

Ivanov has claimed that the number of non-combat deaths in the Army is on the decrease, but Savenkov stated the opposite.

An expanded meeting of the country's military prosecutors will be held today in Moscow to try to understand why so many soldiers are dying off the battlefield.

"Without exaggerating, you can call that quantity of peacetime deaths - 46 - a catastrophe," noted the Novy Izvestia newspaper.

It quoted Veronika Marchenko, chairwoman of the Mothers' Rights Group which lobbies for better conditions in the Army, as expressing little surprise at the death toll.

"Last week does not differ from any of the other 52 which preceded it," she said. "They were exactly the same."

Savenkov said the large number of soldiers dying off the battlefield was the result of officers' unwillingness to help deal with their subordinates' problems because there was no culture of mentoring or offering guidance.

Instead young conscripts are subjected to systematic hazing - known in Russia as Dedovshchina or "rule of the grandfathers".

Military service is compulsory and lasts two years. First-year recruits are usually bullied by the second-year ones, known as "deds"or grandfathers.

The bullying is sometimes so mentally and physically harsh that many take their own lives. Four soldiers hanged themselves this year on a tree branch near their barracks. What drove them to such extreme lengths is unclear.

Deadly business

Official figures say 376 soldiers died for non-combat reasons between January and May.

Of those deaths, 99 were suicides.

Last year the total number of non-combat deaths was 954, of which 246 took their own lives.

The unofficial figures are thought to be much higher.

- INDEPENDENT