According to some independent specialists and experts, the Russian army loses about two thousand people a year in non-combat losses, over 5 years an amount is accumulated that is comparable in state with a full-fledged division. Official figures are much less so in 2006 non-combat losses - 554 people, 2007 - 442, 2008 - 471. The Russian army, being on its territory and not conducting hostilities, loses about a battalion a year, according to official statistics. Most die in road accidents and commit suicide - this is the lion's share of the losses of the modern Russian army, then there are incidents related to exercises, it is not for nothing that they say that the Russian army is dangerous even during maneuvers.
If you think about it, is this a lot or a little - 471 lives in 2008? Let's not take into account the fact that any human life is priceless. Let's try to correlate these losses with the losses of other countries, take, for example, the United States. Having started a military campaign in Afghanistan in October 2001, the United States lost 1407 people in the conflict, this is in 9 years, the Russian army achieves such an indicator in 3 years of peaceful life. In Iraq, the non-combat losses of the US army are estimated at about 900 people over six years. It should be borne in mind that the United States suffers losses in a desert, hot climate, which leads to a large number of equipment accidents, primarily helicopter crashes; the American army suffers these losses during an armed conflict. We reach the figures of American non-combat losses in Iraq in 2 years! This is in the conditions of the presence of the army on the territory of their country, without the conduct of hostilities. These are the gloomy figures. It turns out that we are losing not just a lot, but a lot.
If we talk about the exercises, then since the Soviet times there has been a tradition not to disclose the losses incurred by the country in international exercises. According to experts, the USSR lost from 150 to 200 people a year, now international exercises are being conducted in general, even more, with a decrease in the troops involved. Therefore, there is every reason to believe that these losses incurred by the Russian army have remained at the same level. Therefore, information about losses in such exercises appears very scarce and it is difficult to verify its reliability. So, according to reports of a number of media outlets, at last year's joint Russian-Chinese exercises "Peaceful Mission - 2009", both sides suffered losses in manpower during battles with a conditional enemy. Russia lost about 15 people, China - 60, it is reported that the cartographers were to blame, who disoriented the military on the ground. And you can find a lot of such facts if you search. We will not touch on international maneuvers, we will consider the cases that occurred during exercises, tactical exercises, and shooting exercises this year in Russia.
On the night of April 8-9, at the training ground near Kamenka, during night firing, the T-80 tank fired into the rear and hit the tower - the central fire control point. As a result, 2 lieutenants who were on the tower were killed. They blamed the tank commander, junior sergeant Alexander Shlakin, who was sentenced to 4 years in a settlement colony, it was he who lost his bearings on the terrain, and then pulled the trigger and fired a shot. But whether this person is to blame is a big question. By the way, Kamenka is generally a "damned" place, it is enough to enter this name in Yandex and a lot of news about the unit pops up, then a soldier will commit suicide, then hazing, or careless handling of weapons, and in the summer of this year, a soldier died under a collapsed warehouse wall. conscript 4 more people were injured, so think after that this is an abnormal zone or is it our army like that.
Returning to the episode of nighttime remedies, I would like to especially note how they were carried out and what they write about on the Internet, mainly from the words of Alexander himself.
1. For the junior sergeant, this was the first practice shooting, which he warned the higher command about.
2. In the tank, the indicator showing the turn of the turret did not work, it was not highlighted.
3. Shot with combat fragmentation shells, not blanks
4. During the night means, only targets are illuminated, until the tanks shoot, it is forbidden to turn on any light sources for safety reasons, but the light on the central tower was on.
This is how, instead of a target-discharge, the central observation tower was hit, negligence, carelessness and a little experience of the crew led to tragic consequences.
On July 6, an officer, Aleksey Pavlenko, a company captain of an airborne assault brigade, was killed at a training ground in the Volgograd region during an exercise. The captain died saving the life of a conscript soldier. The soldier awkwardly threw a grenade out of the trench, as a result of which it ended up under his feet, at first the officer tried to push the soldier out of the trench, but realizing that he was not in time, he covered him with his body, 20 minutes later Alexei Pavlenko died from his wounds, and the soldier remained alive.
During and in preparation for the Vostok 2010 exercises, which took place from June 29 to July 8, 6 people were killed. The first victims were 3 tankers, who died, again, during the night firing, which was carried out as a preparation for the upcoming large exercises. The tragedy occurred on June 10 at the Burduny training ground in Buryatia. During the shooting in the T-72 tank, a powder charge exploded in the shell case, all three crew members were killed. The burning tank could not be extinguished for 5 hours. Later, different versions of what happened were expressed, from the human factor - the projectile simply fell out of the hands and detonated; the crew smoked in the tank until a technical malfunction of the tank's loading mechanism.
On June 25, a platoon of soldiers in full uniform was returning on foot from the Zavitinsky training center (Amur region), soldier Alexei Aliyev lost consciousness and fell, he, along with two other victims, was taken to the hospital, where he died on June 27, without regaining consciousness, the cause of death called an abnormally high temperature.
The next day, June 26, at the training ground near the village of Yekaterinoslavka (Amur Region), Viktor Lyalyaev died after a practice shooting, he did not reach the tent 200 meters, lost consciousness and soon died. The official version is heatstroke. Although, according to the information of the brother of the deceased, before that, at the training ground, Lyalyaev took part in a fight, after which he was not provided with any medical assistance.
On July 5, during an exercise at the district Knyazevolkonsky training ground, a private 19-year-old Denis Petrov, called up from Izhevsk, was killed. As the military doctor later noted, the conscript had pneumonia, dehydration, diarrhea and general physical overload of the body. Even without considering how the sick person was sent to the teachings, the surprise is different. At the military training ground, there were no qualified specialists who could provide the privates with the necessary assistance, there were no necessary medicines. At the same time, the exercises were not unscheduled, but planned! They had been planned for several months. What will happen to the Russian army in combat conditions if it is not provided with medical support even during exercises?
These are just a few of the known cases this year. But they also show that in today's army, even with the ongoing reforms, little changes. Soldiers, as they died in peacetime, are dying. The Russian army has been waging a war of annihilation with itself for several years now and does not want to retreat a single step.
