The leadership of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation sees the influence of youth groups of an extremist persuasion among the main reasons for hazing in the army.
Deputy Defense Minister Nikolai Pankov said at a joint meeting of the collegiums of the Prosecutor General's Office, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Sports and Tourism and the Ministry of Education and Science: “According to open sources, there are 150 extremist youth groups in Russia. Their members live in large cities. But the danger of this negative phenomenon spreading to medium and small towns and other settlements is very likely. The acquired communication skills in informal youth groups inevitably come to military collectives and, by the way, this is one of the main reasons for non-statutory manifestations of so-called hazing."
The crime rate among conscripts from Buryatia, North Ossetia, Nizhny Novgorod, Kaliningrad, Saratov regions, Perm and Primorsky territories remains consistently high every year. In the Nizhny Novgorod and Yaroslavl regions, almost every tenth crime occurs through the fault of underage citizens. There are frequent cases of unlawful acts by military personnel who committed similar crimes before being called up for military service. For 2009 and five months of this year, about 270 such cases were recorded.
The military department is concerned about the poor health of the conscripts. 64% of students in general education schools do not regularly go in for sports, about 7% do not attend physical education lessons, and only less than 3% of students from 42 regions have sports categories. At the same time, the standards of physical training of school graduates are much lower than required in the Armed Forces.
Over the past two decades, the number of young people fit for military service has dropped by almost a third. Moreover, in 30% of pre-conscripts, their health and level of physical fitness do not meet the requirements of the army service. "As a result of this situation, unprepared people come to the ranks of the Armed Forces, and already in the army they have to be taught, educated, treated, restored and developed physical health, and sometimes just fed up, providing normal, nutritious food," the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, in turn, said Yuri Chaika.
The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation is also sounding the alarm: more and more young people cannot be drafted into the army due to the fact that they use drugs. In 2009, more than three thousand young people were recognized as partially fit or unfit for military service for this reason. The most alarming situation is in Bashkiria, Amur, Kemerovo, Sverdlovsk, Moscow regions, Krasnodar Territory. According to the Federal Drug Control Service of the Russian Federation, there are several million drug addicts in Russia.
By the way, in the Urals, taking drugs has become a popular way to evade conscript service. Recently, 100 recruits arrived at the assembly point in Yegorshino under the "high".
A party of 100 drug addicts, even if they used the potion only once, has already caused a reaction in the Regional Military District and the regional military registration and enlistment office. An emergency telephone message was sent to all the commissariats and recruiting centers with a list of the settlements that had put unfit conscripts in Yegorshino. The championship in this list is held by Nizhniy Tagil - nine drug addicts arrived from there at once. Further - Chkalovskaya, Verkh-Isetskaya and Railway commissions, each of which sent seven such young people. From Pervouralsk and Sysert, six conscripts intoxicated with drugs arrived. Similar cases were noted among the contingent from the Oktyabrsky and Leninsky districts of Yekaterinburg.
Young people once used marijuana in the hope that they would be recognized as drug addicts and released from compulsory military service. As a rule, such conscripts are returned back to their city and assigned an additional medical examination. They also undergo a rehabilitation course there.
Along with drugs, there is another problem - alcohol. Recently in Blagoveshchensk, more than 50 people gathered at the gates of the military enlistment office - conscripts, their relatives and friends, many were drunk. A conflict arose, which then escalated into a mass brawl. To ensure public order, a detachment of non-departmental security had to be called in.
