The Sunday Times (UK)

18 May 1997

[for personal use only]

by Mark Franchetti

Moscow

THE parents of Andrei Kolesnikov, 19, were filled with pride when he left home to serve in the Russian army. For a brief moment, the boy's father relived the fond memories of his own time as a paratrooper at the height of the cold war. But now all they have left is a faded picture of Andrei looking down from a tombstone in a bleak Moscow cemetery. The last time they saw him was when the army returned his body in a coffin after only four months of national service.

The official verdict was suicide. Andrei was found one freezing morning hanging from a tree in a snow-covered field not far from his barracks. But when his distraught parents insisted on opening the coffin, his body told another story.

"He looked as if he had been beaten to death with a hammer," said Vladimir, his 48-year-old father. "His face was one big bruise. His arms and legs were purple, covered with blows. The army tortured him, killed him, and then hung him from a tree," he said.

He is not the only parent to think the Russian army has become a death camp. As the defence ministry begins its annual recruitment drive, thousands of families are destined to share the same grief.

According to Russian humanitarian groups, 5,000 young soldiers die while serving in the Russian army every year. A fifth of these deaths are believed to be suicides. The rest are suspected murders. More soldiers have died in the past three years from these causes than during the nine-year war in Afghanistan.

In its latest report, Amnesty International called the army "a prison-like, gulag-style institution where the treatment of soldiers is in many cases much worse than that of prisoners".

The army is struggling to survive on the equivalent of a tenth of the American military budget. As more cuts are planned, discipline has all but broken down in what was once the pride of the Soviet Union.

Reports of senseless brutality have become a fact of life. Young recruits are at the mercy of depressed and drunken officers who have not been paid for months and see no future. Strict hierarchies are imposed according to the unwritten rules of dyedovshchina, the Russian term for army bullying.

Soldiers are often beaten, raped and murdered. Others are driven to suicide to escape the violence. Starvation and appalling living conditions have claimed many more lives. There have been reports of young soldiers eating out of dog bowls and claims that officers deprive their units of food as a form of punishment.

Inhumane sanitary conditions have led to outbreaks of diseases such as hepatitis and dysentery. The bodies of some soldiers have been returned with such extensive wounds that their parents could barely recognise them.

According to reports, officers use recruits as slaves for personal gain, selling them to local inhabitants to work as labourers. "Andrei told us that his superiors ran massive food rackets," recalled his father. "Every time he came back home we had to scrape the barrel to give him money and food so that he could return to his barracks without facing severe punishment."

Olga, his mother, added: "Once he went back to his officers empty-handed. He knew we had no money to give. His eyes were full of fear and anxiety as we said goodbye. He didn't want to go back. That was the last time we saw him. Five days later he was dead."

His parents claim he was locked in a cell for four days and beaten senseless. His officers say he hanged himself after trying to desert. "He was such a joyful boy, full of plans for the future," said Vladimir. "But as soon as the army had him he started to change, he went quiet, withdrew within himself. They beat all the life out of him."

Parents who believe their sons were murdered while serving in the army have recently stepped up their fight for justice. Some officers have been suspended, but there have been no successful prosecutions.

Few witnesses are prepared to give evidence in court. Most potentia witnesses change their minds after receiving death threats. Many investigators are on the army's payroll and it is almost impossible for parents to be granted an independent post-mortem examination.

"The Russian army has become a hellhole," said Svetlana Valodina, of the mothers' rights committee, which was set up to help parents seek justice. "The violence starts from day one. Officers can get away with murder, literally. The official version is always suicide. But the truth is that our soldiers are being murdered."

Maria Fedulova of the Soldiers' Mothers group, which advises recruits, added: "Every day I am confronted with terrified young men who would rather end up in jail as deserters than serve in the army."

During the last presidential campaign, Boris Yeltsin promised to end conscription by the year 2000, a move which assured him the vote of most young men. Meanwhile, the army, desperate to fill quotas, is picking up young men off the street.

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Johnson's Russia List

18 May 1997

djohnson@cdi.org