From: fweir.ncade@rex.iasnet.ru

Date: Sun, 01 Mar 1998

For the Hindustan Times

From: Fred Weir in Moscow

MOSCOW (HT) -- Anton Korshunov is preparing to go underground and says he'd rather live his life on the lam than spend a day in the brutal, chaotic nightmare that is Russia's collapsing army.

``I'm terrified,'' says the slightly built, dark-haired 18-year old. ``I've talked to many people who've been in, and I know that I couldn't survive that ordeal.''

His immediate goal is to escape the annual call to the colours, beginning this month, in which military chiefs plan to scoop 200,000 young men into a vast conscript army the Russian government cannot afford, no longer needs and has pledged to abolish.

Mr. Korshunov is not alone. The defence ministry admits that 70,000 youths evaded the country's mandatory 2 year military service last year. An estimated 40,000 army deserters are also on the run.

Russian law is tough on draft evasion, and police have the power to stop any young man on the street to demand proof of military service.

``I don't live with my parents, because that's the first place they'll look for me,'' says Mr. Korshunov. ``And I never go out, not even to buy bread.''

Most draft dodgers try to obtain forged student deferments, or convince a sympathetic doctor to certify them unfit for service. Some, like Mr. Korshunov, just plan to stay hidden and hope the laws will change.

``I know lots of guys who live like that,'' he says. ``There are whole networks of people who help each other, provide jobs, supply false papers and safe living places.''

There is some hope that change will eventually come.

Russia's constitution, authored by President Boris Yeltsin in 1993, grants draft-age conscientious objectors the right to perform unspecified alternative civil service instead of a stint in the military.

But parliament has yet to pass an enabling law, and the handful of young men who have tried to realize their constitutional rights through the courts have all been sent on to prison or the army.

``This is the only country in the world where constitutional rights are purely theoretical,'' says Sergei Sorokin, a lawyer who counsels draft evaders. ``The courts are subservient to political power, and they are no help at all.''

When he was running for re-election in 1996 Mr. Yeltsin promised to phase out conscription by the year 2000 and replace the Cold War-era military with a modern all-volunteer force.

But Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev recently said the cash-strapped army cannot afford such a rapid makeover and conscription will have to stay until 2005 or beyond.

``The big conscript army is the legacy of Russia's imperial era and superpower status, and as such has many political supporters,'' says Mr. Sorokin.

``The fact that we have no law on alternative community service for young men after almost 10 years of democratic reform testifies to the continuing strength of the militarist-patriotic forces in Russian politics.''

Mr. Sorokin says the paralytic, disintegrating armed forces could just break down one day soon, thus forcing the pace of change.

Even top generals admit the army is barely able to house, feed and pay its 1.5-million personnel on threadbare post-Soviet military budgets.

Army service was considered a man's ``honourary duty'' in Soviet times. But it has since degenerated into a living hell where young recruits are subjected to brutal hazing, used as forced labour to enrich corrupt senior officers, and are routinely deprived of adequate nutrition, clothing, shelter and health care.

The Committee of Soldier's Mothers, Russia's leading anti-military organization, estimates at least 5,000 conscripts died last year through accidents, disease, suicide and neglect.

``Russia doesn't have an army anymore, it's just a huge monster that swallows young men and chews them up,'' says Valentina Melnikova, the group's spokesperson.

``The only sane response is to run away.''

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Johnson's Russia List

#2086

1 March 1998

davidjohnson@erols.com