Two suicides have occurred in the last three days on just one military base, #3377 in Krasnoyarsky Kray. Private First Class Andrei Zagorodzev, 20 years old, was found hanged in one of the buildings in town close to the base. There was a note in his pocket, saying that no one should be blamed for his death. However, Andrei's friends say that it is impossible that he could have chosen suicide of his own free will.
Last Friday, on the same military base, Andrei Sobin, age 19, was found hanging from his own belt in a bathroom. Officials offered the explanation that Sobin committed suicide after receiving a "Dear Ivan" letter from his girlfriend. However, Sobin's friends say that he killed himself because of abuse. Andrei could not handle the constant beatings inflicted on him by young privates from Dagestan serving in his unit. A military investigation commission sent from the Siberian Military Headquarters stated that an autopsy revealed evidence of torture on Sobin's body.
Five Russian soldiers have committed suicide or murdered their comrades since last March on the same military base. On March 8, 2005, a private shot to death two of his comrades; one month later, another soldier killed himself with a Kalashnikov rifle; weeks later, during a clean-up of an obstacle course, another private had his hand blown off by a grenade explosion, which could have originated as a prank from his sadistic comrades - or maybe it was just an accident. In 2004, on the same military base, two soldiers shot themselves one month apart; two other privates stole a Toyota Corolla and tried to escape the military base in November 2004, and another 18 year-old soldier hung himself in a bathroom.
This is just a short story about a series of events from one of many Russian military bases. The Russian army is a place that drafts young healthy boys from poor or single-mother families, and tortures them with constant beatings from sadistic NCOs. The Russian Army kills these boys in stupid accidents, or sends them to Chechnya. Many "lucky" survivors of the Chechen war leave the army embittered, their bodies scarred by the men who were supposed to lead them, suffering from tuberculosis, STDs, or alcoholism and mental illness.
My father, Yuri Mamchur, Sr., during his presentation at Discovery Institute in Seattle said that Russia has 12,500 miles of land borders with 15 countries, which represent many religions and political systems; a population of 143 million spread over 11,000 square miles; 22,000 miles of coastline; a never-ending war with jihadists in Chechnya, and 104 billion dollar annual Federal budget. How does one expect to equip a professional volunteer army of 1,000,000 troops without a mandatory draft? The situation seems hopeless and irresolvable. Russia has some money, but it is spent elsewhere, on things more valued than its own children and security.
For more on this topic, see the previous post The Truth about the Army Draft.
