RUSSIA: Army’s Culture of Violence Killing Soldiers

By Kester Kenn Klomegah Reprint | | Print |

Kester Kenn Klomegah

MOSCOW, Jul 5 2005 (IPS) - Nearly 350 Russian soldiers died from accidents and "crime" in the first half of 2005 according to official figures, but critics charge the actual numbers are much higher.

Of the 347 deaths reported by the defence ministry this week, suicides accounted for 101 while eight men died after brutal hazing.

Another 88 died in traffic accidents, 83 in other transportation-related incidents, and 39 were killed by civilians. Twenty-eight servicemen were killed fighting the insurgency in Chechnya in the first three months of 2005, and 10 more in May, said the ministry.

Chief Military Prosecutor Alexander Savenkov had earlier warned of a high crime wave in the military and revealed that as many as 46 soldiers had died in a single week (Jun. 6-12), as a result of what he called "crimes and incidents" in the army.

Hazing of new recruits is on the rise in the army, he added. "The number of offences related to hazing has been growing at a speed of about 25 percent (a year) during the past two years," Savenkov told a news conference. "While until recently the share of hazing in the general structure of army crimes was 11 percent, today it is approaching 30 percent."

But an association of soldiers’ mothers’ rights groups told IPS this week that the defence ministry reports seriously underestimated the deplorable conditions and violence that are resulting in growing deaths in the army.

As many as 3,000 conscripts die annually from beatings, suicide and murder while serving in the army, estimates the Russian Union of Soldiers’ Mothers Committees.

The allegations are yet another blow to Russia’s under-funded armed forces – in which every male between 18 and 27 years must serve two years – already widely criticized for pervasive problems, such as hazing, low morale and generally poor conditions.

Union of Soldiers’ Mothers Committees Chairwoman Valentina Melnikova said the ministry’s report was another attempt to conceal the truth and the social standing of soldiers serving in the army.

"We believe that the figures released by the ministry were far underestimated and according to our information, which was monitored, the real numbers are three times higher," she told IPS. "The figures mentioned by the ministry are unacceptable as the true picture of what’s happening to our sons who were recruited for compulsory service."

Melnikova said that some 40 percent of parents whose sons had committed suicide believed the acts were the result of unbearable psychological pressure and poor living conditions.

She said her group would continue to fight for the rights of serving soldiers and for ending compulsory military service. According to Melnikova, the union plans to hold a nationwide referendum later this year to gauge the Russian public’s attitude towards cancelling the draft.

The military has been caught trying to lowball the numbers of non-combat deaths in the past. Defence Minister Sergey Ivanov, for example, announced at one point that just 337 servicemen had died in 2003.

But some time later, the deputy chief of the army’s main directorate, Lieutenant General Victor Buslovsky, provided a figure three times as high.

"Those figures are entirely unreliable. They have simply decided to make the best of a bad situation," defence analyst and deputy editor of ‘Yezhednevny Zhurnal’, Alexander Golts, told IPS.

"Russian soldiers and officers are dying from ‘dovshchina’, the hazing of new recruits by more experienced soldiers. They are dying from the incompetent handling of weapons, suicide and traffic accidents," Golts added.

The Kremlin and the defence ministry are attempting to maintain an enormous, conscription-based, Soviet-style army comparable in size to the U.S. army. The Russian force has 1.21 million servicemen, plus 876,000 civilian personnel – an optimal figure according to the defence ministry.

Yet the government supports the army on money that, defence experts say, is only enough to properly fund 500,000 troops. And while Russia has roughly the same amount of military hardware as the United States, its military budget is a fraction of the whopping U.S. budget.

Over the past seven years, Russian defence spending has increased five-fold, yet the situation in the army has not improved, continue the critics.

"Russia’s attempt to maintain a Soviet-style army inevitably results in low pay for soldiers and leaves officers in a humiliating position," said Golts.

President Vladimir Putin has said that improving the technology of the army’s rapid reaction units and supplying them with new, qualified servicemen is a priority task..

"We need to intensely continue the work to supply the army and navy with the newest weapons and military equipment. All of the plans we have made should be completely carried out on time. We have all the resources necessary for this and the financing for the state defence order in 2005 was increased by one-third," Putin said recently.

"By the end of 2005, the structure and strength of the troops must be brought into line with the character and direction of the current and predicted threats," he added.

The next task will be to equip the troops with new weapons and military hardware, and to further develop the system of social welfare and a housing mortgage programme for the servicemen, according to Putin, who announced the government plans to spend two billion roubles (69 million U.S. dollars) for the housing.