Tag Archives: Dedovshchina

Suicidal Lieutenants

Posted on December 9, 2010 | Leave a comment

President Toasts the Kuropatkins (photo: Aleksandr Astafyev)

The Pacific Fleet command and investigators say the shooting of a 22-year-old lieutenant assigned to a 35-year-old LST in Fokino was a suicide attempt, and not the result of ‘nonregulation relations’ or dedovshchina.  The incident occurred 1 December.  Lieutenant Maksim Kuropatkin was found with a gunshot wound to the head, and he remains in a coma.  Investigators say he shot himself with his service sidearm in the presence of two witnesses.  No criminal case has been initiated.  Their preliminary conclusion is that Kuropatkin suffered a nervous breakdown caused by difficulty adapting to life in the service.

Moskovskiy komsomolets point out the Kuropatkin case is a little special because President Dmitriy Medvedev was the surprise guest of honor at the lieutenant’s wedding in early July.  Medvedev was touring the Far East, and arrived at Birobidzhan’s wedding palace in time to witness three marriages including Kuropatkin’s.  Medvedev wished the lieutenant and his bride a “long happy family life.”  He ordered the governor of the Jewish AO to find apartments for all three couples.  About a month ago, the Kuropatkins got their apartment.

Kuropatkin’s family doesn’t believe his shooting was a suicide attempt.  They say he was always goal-oriented, and aimed for a military career from age 14 (presumably he attended a Nakhimov Naval School).  He graduated from the Pacific Naval Institute late this spring, married, and had been in his first assignment only a couple months.

They also say Kuropatkin recently mentioned the name of a senior officer who often picked on him, and was constantly nagging him to draw up some kind of documents, and when Kuropatkin refused, he said, “Well, that’s it, it’s the end for you.” 

A 24-year-old lieutenant named Ivan Yegorov died in what was also called a suicide aboard Slava-class CG Varyag in mid-November.  MK sums up saying:

“According to the opinion of knowledgeable people, dedovshchina in the officer environment ranges up to physical violence and shootings.”

RIA Novosti also reported a Baltic Fleet suicide this week.  A 23-year-old lieutenant from the Pionerskiy garrison reportedly shot himself in the chest with a Makarov pistol.  He apparently left a note.  The chair of the Kaliningrad Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers said she was completely surprised by this incident, adding that there have never been “any signals” of problems from the unit where this lieutenant served.

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Posted in Law, Order, and Discipline, Navy, Officer Corps

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Serdyukov’s Carte Blanche

Posted on November 3, 2010 | Leave a comment

In an editorial Monday, Vedomosti supported the carte blanche President Dmitriy Medvedev has apparently given Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov and his military reforms.  The paper likes the reforms enough that it wants the President to think about the possible effectiveness of the ‘army method’ in reforming the MVD.  Here’s what Vedomosti had to say:

“Renaming the Army”

“Dmitriy Medvedev’s and Anatoliy Serdykov’s joint trip to a model Moscow suburban military unit went beyond the protocol of the visit.  The President’s speech in awarding outstanding military men became a new signal to officers, the army, and society:  ‘Despite the fact that all changes are difficult, they are necessary…  Everything that is now being done is directed at establishing modern and effective armed forces.  Here there are both problems and good decisions, I am following this personally as Supreme CINC.’  The Kremlin demonstrated that, despite the recent media scandal, it trusts the civilian Defense Minister, won’t bow to the generals’ and veterans’ opposition, and intends to continue its planned military reform.”

“The new carte blanche for Serdyukov for further transformation is important for many reasons.  The current minister is not the first civilian director of the military department.  However, he specifically replaced a campaign of reforming with systematic transformations.  In his inheritance from Sergey Ivanov, Serdyukov received a much truncated army of the Soviet type, not answering modern requirements.  Dedovshchina, obsolete armaments (modern equipment is not much more than 10% of the general inventory) and command and control, and manning were its main problems.  Add to this corruption among the generals which prevented equipping the army with new types of armaments and communications.  The victorious August war of 2008 showed that the victors couldn’t suppress the enemy’s aviation and artillery and were inferior to the vanquished in modern communications and reconnaissance means.”

“Serdyukov’s attempts to establish control over expenditures on purchases for the army met severe resistance from rear services officers and generals.  Not long ago he acknowledged to journalists:  ‘When I came to the Defense Ministry, speaking plainly, I was surrounded by large amounts of thievery.  Financial licentiousness, the impunity of people whom no one had checked out (…) was so deeply ingrained that it had already become a way of thinking.’  The minister confirms that the transparency of the defense order is a ways off.  The unnecessary secrecy of the military budget is interfering with this.  Meanwhile, progress in the struggle against traders in shoulderboards is obvious.  In 2006, corruption cases were started against seven generals, in 2007, when Serdyukov became minister, — against 16, in 2008 — against 20, in the first half of this year — against eight more.”

“Besides this, the Defense Ministry put up for sale unneeded property and facilities which were being illegally rented out to enrich a few people, and didn’t allow for building apartment blocks for officers needing housing on these grounds.”

“On the whole, it’s possible also to consider organizational transformations a success:  the transition to a more modern system of command and control and the reduction in the excess number of generals and higher officers.  In 2008, of 249 generals and admirals who underwent certification [аттестация], 50 were dismissed, and 130 sent to new places of service.  One can’t avoid mistakes in cutting and dismissing officers, but those deprived of a sinecure cried loudest of all about the collapse of the army and treason.”

“The struggle with barracks hooliganism goes on with varying success.  According to the Main Military Prosecutor’s data, in 2006, more than 5,800 people suffered beatings from fellow servicemen, in 2009 — 3,000.  And for the first five months of 2010, 1,167 soldiers suffered from dedovshchina — 1.5 times more than the analogous period of 2009, of them, four died.  The cause is not only in the growth — because of the cut in the service term — the number of new conscripts went from 123,000 in the fall of 2006 to the current 270,600.  Generals, having botched the program costing 84 billion rubles to transfer to contract, now are forced to call up those with criminal records.  Military police will remain a paper tiger for ‘dedy’ and ethnic clans.  We note that Serdyukov hasn’t forsaken a professional army, but put off its creation until the time when the Defense Ministry will be able to select and not collect contractees through deception and duress.”

“Nevertheless, it’s notable that over 3 and 1/2 years, the reform, being conducted by independent managers without legal changes and loud renamings, has really moved forward.  It’s possible it’s worth the President considering the effectiveness of the army method in reforming the MVD.”

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Posted in Command and Control, Crime and Corruption, Hazing, Law, Order, and Discipline, Officer Corps, Serdyukov's Reforms

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Larger Significance of the Serdyukov Flap

Posted on October 23, 2010 | Leave a comment

Pavel Felgengauer

You’ll find bits of the following by Pavel Felgengauer in various English language articles, but not his full argument as laid out here.

Writing in Novaya gazeta this week, military commentator Pavel Felgengauer concludes that Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov remains in place, but the army’s problems are growing.  He says:

“Today a dangerous situation of general decay in discipline and order is taking shape which could lead to a loss of control over the armed forces.”

The slow disintegration of the Soviet Armed Forces required Serdyukov to take immediate, radical, and often not well thought out reforms, according to Felgengauer.  Mass officer and warrant officer dismissals have put 70 thousand outside the TO&E “at the command’s disposition,” essentially just waiting for dismissal.  Only 10,000 are junior officers whom the Defense Ministry owes little by way of benefits.

A bit of explanation that Felgengauer doesn’t give you.  We haven’t had any independent observer put this number so high.  These 70,000 are waiting for housing because, by law, surplus officers can’t be discharged until they get permanent apartments.  But they aren’t living on much while they wait.  Because they don’t have duty posts, they get only rank pay, not various monthly supplements that officers in active positions get.  Rank pay might be only 30 percent of what they received when they were in the TO&E.

But back to Felgengauer.  He turns next to NCOs.  He says experts say, with a million-man army and 150,000 officers, the Russian Armed Forces need 200,000 or 300,000 sergeants.  But in Serdyukov’s ‘new profile’ TO&E, there are billets for only 90,000 contractee-specialists and NCOs together.

And these are the guys who’re supposed to help the shrunken officer corps keep order in the ranks.

Felgengauer then recites the Main Military Prosecutor’s announcement that barracks violence is up 50 percent in 2010.  He says incidents of open ‘hooliganism,’ criminal violence, and inter-ethnic conflict are all rising.  And only a declining number of officers is there to hold all this together – with the help of an inadequate NCO corps.  This is why, says Felgengauer, the Soviet officer corps relied on dedovshchina as a lever to keep order among the troops.  He may be suggesting Russian officers are doing the same thing now.

He concludes many are dissatisfied with this state of affairs, and they all focus blame on Serdyukov, somewhat unfairly, according to Felgengauer.  Criticism is focused on the man who actually tried to fix Russia’s decaying defense department, and not his predecessors who drove it to ruin.

Of course, one could ask Felgengauer isn’t this the fate of all reformers?  Maybe those being reformed were happy with the decaying and ineffective bureaucracy and forces that were comfortable, and perhaps profitable, for them.

Felgengauer returns to the issue of attempts to train NCOs.  Instead of officers, military schools are supposed to prepare sergeants instead.  But only the erstwhile Ryazan Higher Airborne Command School is actually doing it, and, ironically, this is where the storm over Serdyukov arose.

Felgengauer concludes that Putin and Medvedev agreed with Serdyukov’s reforms, and so they aren’t ready to dismiss him now.  But the problems and tensions surrounding the Defense Ministry are growing.

In a kind of postscript, Felgengauer sees the decision for military police as something of a ridiculous answer to disorder in the army.  First, they will be selected from the ranks of the most disgruntled – the dismissed officers.  The concept behind using some ‘dissatisfied-dismissed’ to keep order among other dissatisfied is just a little inscrutable.  And, in the best case, it’ll take over a year to change all the laws and regulations to allow military police to operate.  Will Serdyukov and his reforms remain intact by then?

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Recommended Reading

Posted on October 19, 2010 | Leave a comment

Take a few minutes and read two posts from Paul Goble’s Window on Eurasia —Russian Commander Appeals to Mufti to Help Restore Order in His Unit and Russian General Staff to Experiment with ‘Mono-Ethnic’ and ‘Mono-Religious’ Units.

Goble reviews recent problems with insubordination and violence by conscripts from Dagestan at an air base in Perm.  The situation is similar to others written about on these pages.  The second article reports on rumors the army is ready to entertain the idea of single-nationality units to forestall some of these problems.

Not long ago Tatar parents actually argued for monoethnic units to protect their conscript sons from ‘dedovshchina on nationality grounds.’  Once again, conscripts from Dagestan were the perpetrators of the violence in many cases.

The possibility of ethnic units to control zemlyachestvo in the army runs counter to the Defense Ministry’s current policy of letting more conscripts serve closer to home if possible.  Presumably a unit of men from Dagestan wouldn’t serve anywhere near their homes.  At the same time, such a unit could be the source of many problems with the locals in a predominantly Russian area.

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Fridinskiy vs. Serdyukov on Dedovshchina

Posted on October 9, 2010 | Leave a comment

Barracks violence in Russia has risen by at least 50 percent thus far in 2010; this isn’t exactly news since the Main Military Prosecutor announced the same thing back in July.  But his comments on the situation provide an interesting contrast with what Defense Minister Serdyukov said in his interview this week.

ITAR-TASS reported on Main Military Prosecutor (GVP or ГВП) Sergey Fridinskiy’s statement that increasing the number of conscripts in Russia’s armed forces has led, as he predicted, to a rise in ‘nonregulation relations.’  And some 3,000 servicemen have suffered from hazing and other violence in the barracks.

Fridinskiy said:

“If we’re talking about nonregulation manifestations, then, of course, they worry everyone – both society and military prosecutors – since they infringe on the life and health of servicemen, and therefore we view them in the most severe way.  Amid a reduction in general criminality, the quantity of cases of barracks violence rose by almost a third over nine months of this year.”

Among the 3,000 victims, Fridinskiy reported:

“Nine men died, and another 96 suffered serious harm to their health.”

“Our joint efforts – both with commands and with civil society institutions – really allowed us not only to stop negative processes in the army environment, but even to prevent many serious consequences.  The curve of nonregulation manifestations certainly went lower.  However, since last year, the situation began to change again.  Since the fall [of 2009], we felt that the sharp increase in conscript soldiers could lead to a deterioration in legal order among the troops.  And we talked about this.  And so it happened.”

“There’s no need to fear.  And I will say that, on the whole, the crime level among the troops is declining.  Based on the results of the first eight months, the number of registered crimes fell almost 10 percent.  There are a lot of military units where there are practically no legal violations.”

Fridinskiy called the doubling of the draftee contingent one of the reasons for the growth in ‘nonregulation manifestations.’  He said more than 1,400 soldiers and sergeants were convicted of assault and battery through August.  Then Fridinskiy added a second reason – great negligence in the work of officers.

GVP data shows approximately one-third of the victims of violence are draftees in their first 2-3 months of service, and the offenders, on the other hand, have served 8-9 months.  So, Fridinskiy concludes, the informal division of conscripts into ‘seniors’ and ‘juniors’ in the barracks hasn’t gone away.

Fridinskiy noted that instead of ‘youthful boldness,’ barracks violence is now more often motivated by baser motives.  The number of ‘nonregulation manifestations’ connected with theft and extortion has grown more than 50 percent.  And he said:

“They steal mobile phones and money most often – just exactly like it happens on city streets.”

So, let’s go back to Defense Minister Serdyukov’s analysis of barracks violence.  Asked whether one-year conscription is having any effect on dedovshchina, he said: 

“There are more nonregulation instances in absolute terms.  But this doesn’t scare me, because there are more conscripts.  The situation has to level out with time.  And the statistics will begin to fall perfectly precisely.  Particularly when you account for our methods:  we are very demanding with commanders on this, even up to dismissal in cases with deadly consequences.  Human rights advocates have already begun to criticize me for dismissing many of them for nothing.” 

So Serdyukov and Fridinskiy agree there are more, and they surely know if there are more in relative terms as well.  Say incidents per 1,000 soldiers.  But they aren’t saying. 

And the argument that there’s more violence because there are more conscripts doesn’t necessarily hold water either.  Before the shift to 1-year conscription, about 130,000 guys were inducted every six months in 4 cycles over 2 years, for a total of roughly 520,000 conscripts at any given time.  The only thing that’s changed is that they’re taken in two large tranches now . . . if it’s 260,000 guys, that’s still 520,000 soldiers at any moment.

In late 2009, Serdyukov called hazing and other violence a major unresolved problem, and clearly the situation will be even worse by late 2010.  Don’t forget that dedovshchina and other violence remains the number one reason why Russian men don’t want to serve, and it’s significant it’s rising at the very moment the army’s trying to put ever-expanding numbers of guys [280,000 this fall] in uniform.  It certainly doesn’t make the job easier. 

Serdyukov’s answer above really sounds like soft-peddling an intractable problem.  He thinks this will magically “level out” by itself.  And he’s counting on commanders to rectify it, the very people Fridinskiy says are to blame.

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Story of a Noncombat Loss

Posted on August 30, 2010 | 1 comment

Albert Kiyamov (photo: Chita.ru)

A recent case illustrates why most Russians don’t want their sons – especially talented, well-educated ones – to serve in the army.  It’s a tale of senseless violence and abuse going beyond dedovshchina , bullying, or hazing.  And it highlights how contract service makes sadistic riff-raff into unprofessional NCOs, and tormentors of the conscripts they’re intended to lead.  

For their part, more VUZ graduates are ending up in the army given the military’s need for higher numbers of draftees and its tighter enforcement of conscription rules.  The army believes more educated conscripts will make service safer, but it may just make them the victims of violence in the ranks. 

The investigation into the May death of a conscript named Albert Kiyamov in Transbaykal Kray recently ended with the filing of criminal charges against company sergeant Sergey Lugovets. 

Kiyamov was a promising graduate with a degree in nuclear physics, who’d been picked for a job in the Scientific-Research Institute of Nuclear Reactors.  But he got called-up in April.  According to Newsru.com, his family thinks his poor vision should have made him unfit to serve. 

Lugovets enlisted in the army despite a suspended sentence for theft in Volgograd Oblast, and became a sergeant in the headquarters company of the 36th Independent Motorized Rifle Brigade in Borzya (v/ch 06705).  According to Utro.ru, he quickly established ‘his order’ in the company.  And he picked Kiyamov to be his main victim. 

Kiyamov endured days of beatings and humiliation from Lugovets before jumping to his death from a fourth-story barracks window on May 14. 

According to Newsru.com, the command told Kiyamov’s family it was a simple suicide, but they refused to accept this, believing – based on the number of bruises and abrasions on his body – he’d been beaten, then thrown from the window.  The SibVO military prosecutor at first denied observing evidence of prior beatings on Kiyamov’s body.  But an investigation ensued. 

Sergeant Lugovets didn’t deny his guilt, but claimed he was trying to ‘teach’ Kiyamov how to conduct himself around his ‘seniors.’  He faces a possible 10-year sentence for “violating regulation rules of relations between servicemen, entailing serious consequences.” 

The unit’s officers were attending an exercise at the time of this incident, and military investigators gave them a warning to eliminate the kinds of violations that led to Lugovets’ abuse of Kiyamov.  

Vitaliy Cherkasov, Director of the Transbaykal Legal Defense Center, told Newsru.com about a similar incident in Borzya more recently, but, in this case, the soldier sustained serious injuries, and survived to be discharged from the army.  A legal defense group told Utro.ru the Kiyamov tragedy was possible because the Defense Ministry allows men with criminal records to sign up for contract service [of course, it drafts some with criminal records too]. 

Units in Borzya, and the Transbaykal generally, have a substantial history of problems with violence and abuse in the ranks.  On the positive side, investigators are getting to the truth in some cases, but too late for kids like Albert Kiyamov.

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Prosecutorial Prophylaxis

Posted on August 11, 2010 | Leave a comment

In this instance, the military legal system’s effort to prevent the scourge of dedovshchina, or hazing and other violence against servicemen . . . .

Today’s Krasnaya zvezda covered military prosecutors’ special campaign to warn servicemen against breaking the ‘regulation rules of relations’ between them this month.  The paper talked to the acting military prosecutor of the SibVO’s Yurga garrison to find out what measures he’s trying.

Recall our last mention of Yurga covered its role as test bed for Defense Minister Serdyukov’s attempt to ‘humanize’ military service, so this is obviously a good spot to work to uproot dedovshchina culture.

The Yurga prosecutor said he’s used anonymous questionaires to gather a ‘sufficiently complete picture of the existing situation.’  Taking this and information from sub-unit commanders, the prosecutor proceeds to ‘individual prophylactic conversations.’  He calls such ‘prosecutorial warnings’ a very effective instrument; 18-year-old soldiers have to sign a paper acknowledging they’ve been warned about possible criminal liability for violating regulations and this may have a psychological and deterrent effect on them.

The prosecutor also conducts round tables and extra dissemination of special SibVO ‘pamphlets’ in sub-units.  More on these later.  The pamphlets include a hotline number for reporting violations of law and order (presuming that conscripts have a phone, and aren’t afraid of who’s listening to their call).  He puts up displays informing soldiers of judicial punishments meted out for various violations.  All and all, the prosecutor expects more inquiries coming into his office this month as a result of the campaign.

Moskovskiy komsomolets has a number of these ‘pamphlets’ and concludes they’re generally given to conscripts all over Russia.  They urge the victims of barracks violence not to break the law themselves, show courage, and, if absolutely necessary, hide on the grounds of the unit rather than go AWOL.  But, the paper notes, the ‘pamphlets’ don’t say how long to hide out, or how to eat while hiding.

The ‘pamphlets’ urge conscripts to tell their tormentors that they intend to go to their commander, and to believe that the law is on their side.  It exhorts them not to even think about resorting to using a weapon or committing suicide.

Moskovskiy komsomolets concludes, for all their absurdity, the pamphlets show the fundamental plague of today’s army remains the legal illiteracy of conscripts, their inclination toward violence, and the inability of their officers to cope with them.

Vesti FM interviewed ‘Citizen and Army’ coordinator Sergey Krivenko about the pamphlets.  He said at least they show the Defense Ministry acknowledges dedovshchina is a problem, and it’s growing, not declining.  He believes the pamphlets’ appearance is an indication of hopelessness; military reform is not transforming conscript service or giving conscripts adequate legal protection.

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Dedovshchina in RF Army Up 50 Percent — GVP

Posted on July 21, 2010 | Leave a comment

A translation, no commentary . . .

“MOSCOW, 21 Jul – RIA Novosti.  The level of dedovshchina [violent hazing usually perpetrated by senior soldiers] in the Russian Army grew 1.5 times for the first five months of this year compared with the same period in 2009, according to analytical information provided to the RF Federation Council by the Main Military Prosecutor (GVP).  1,167 servicemen have suffered from nonregulation manifestations in 2010, four have died, and more than 90% of offenses were committed by conscript servicemen.”

“As the GVP notes, the number of corruption-related crimes is also growing.  Material losses from them amount to almost a billion rubles this year.” 

“At the same time, the GVP notes that the general crime level in the state’s military organization has declined by more than 12% over five months this year compared with the same period of 2009, and by almost 15% in the armed forces.”

“In particular, the amount of evasion of military service declined by almost two-fold.”

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More Drugs, Extremism in the Army

Posted on June 16, 2010 | Leave a comment

According to ITAR-TASS, Main Military Prosecutor Sergey Fridinskiy today warned colleagues at an inter-governmental meeting on military-patriotic indoctrination that anti-drug measures among minors are not having the intended effect, and: 

“Based on last year’s results, the growth of crime connected with illegal trade in narcotic and dangerous substances in the troops (of all power structures) exceeded 70 percent.” 

For his part, Deputy Defense Minister, State Secretary Nikolay Pankov agreed that drug-addicted youth pose a threat not just to the army, but the whole country.  He added: 

“The ‘drug addiction’ diagnosis is becoming customary for draft commissions.” 

At the Draft Board (photo: Newsru.com)

And as if on cue, today from a Ural region draftee assembly point in Yegorshino came the story of 100 young men who arrived recently high on marijuana in hopes of being deferred from conscript service for dependence on narcotics. 

The voyenkomat reported nothing like 100 guys showing up before the draft board in a state of ‘narcotic intoxication’ has previously happened. 

A voyenkomat representative said: 

“There’s never been such a thing, we are sure this is a particular feature of the current draft.  The young guys intentionally used narcotics in order not to end up in the army.” 

According to Newsru.com, a State Narcotics Control officer for Sverdlovsk Oblast is investigating the ‘stoners’ who came from Nizhniy Tagil, Yekaterinburg, and Pervouralsk.  The voyenkomat said these men would be returned to their towns for additional medical observation and rehabilitation. 

ITAR-TASS reported more of Pankov’s comments on a different subject.  He said: 

“In Russia, nearly 150 extremist youth groups are active, the participants in them live mainly in big cities.” 

Pankov didn’t rule out that young extremists could spread from large cities to small towns and lightly populated areas, saying: 

“This is highly probable.  All this comes into military collectives and leads to the growth of nonregulation relations, so-called ‘dedovshchina.'”  

This is just one reason the army’s always preferred country boys from the ‘sticks’ rather than city guys.

The topics of drugs and nationalism in the army, if not taboo outright, have been little discussed.  Some honest talk about these problems might be the first step in solving them.

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Yesterday’s Military Crime Report

Posted on April 15, 2010 | Leave a comment

The number and details of military crimes reported in yesterday’s press were above average and more interesting than usual.  They illustrate the kinds of pathologies the Defense Ministry confronts on a daily basis.

From Toglyatti, a noncombat loss.  An army conscript hung himself.  The military has reported nothing suspicious about this, except that the young man had transferred to this unit from another.  Conscripts sometimes obtain transfers to escape hazing, dedovshchina, etc.

From the MVO, the district’s chief of staff, first deputy commander of Rocket Troops and Artillery, one Colonel Aleksandr Zemlyanskiy, stands accused of using a conscript to guard and do household chores at his dacha in Moscow Oblast for five months last year.  The RF Prosecutor’s Investigative Committee’s Military Investigative Directorate investigated Zemlyanskiy’s case.  That’s a lot of investigating.  The colonel faces up to 4 years in prison.

From Reutov near Moscow, the personnel chief for an MVO unit, one Lieutenant Colonel Dmitriy Vasin, stands accused of demanding bribes in exchange for performing normal duties.  Obtaining the next military rank cost 15,000 rubles, an expedited dismissal from the armed forces cost 70,000 rubles.  For an extra 20,000, officers could get dismissed from the service and keep a place in the unit’s line for permanent housing.  Vasin could get 5 years.

From Chechnya, the SKVO, the finance chief of a unit got 4 years for exceeding his authority by paying out 3 million rubles to ten individuals with a court order for back combat pay owed to them.  The finance chief did not seek his commander’s permission to issue the pay although he knew their court documents were forgeries.

From the DVO, near Khabarovsk, a former unit commander got a year for extorting 3,000 rubles a month from an officer put outside the TO&E on health grounds, but kept on the unit’s books since he lacked permanent housing.  The 3,000 was the price for keeping him on the books, without him having to report to the unit every day.   

In the DVO, a lieutenant forced 9 contractees to work unpaid for four years in a private security company called “Deon.”  And he also stole their military pay amounting to 3 million rubles over time.  He beat one of the men.  The lieutenant got a 4 year sentence.

Lastly, again from the DVO, Novaya gazeta reports today on a case from 2008.  The VSU has started a criminal case against a former deputy regiment commander for socialization work, one Lieutenant Colonel Novokhatniy. 

He abused a handcuffed conscript on the parade ground in front of 500 men.  No one tried to stop it, and one of Novokhatniy’s subordinates videotaped the incident (you can view it on the Novgaz link). 

Local authorities complained about lawlessness, fights, and even murders at the regiment in letters to the Defense Minister, General Prosecutor, and DVO Commander:

“The condition of discipline in the unit can’t stand any criticism, it’s time to defend the civilian population from the contingent sent to serve here.”

One officer finally complained to the regiment commander and military prosecutor, and Novokhatniy punched him.  But all the incidents were hushed up, and Novokhatniy actually ran and won election to the rayon assembly for the South Kurils as a member of the ruling United Russia party. 

At some point, the officer who was punched turned the videotape of the incident over to the DVO’s VSU.  And the VSU came after Novokhatniy, who readily admitted his actions, as well as a couple of his cronies.

All in all, a remarkable day of military crime reports; not a typical day exactly, but remarkable, and lamentable.

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