About 50 Dagestanis keep the entire military unit in fear
In early July, 20 young recruits from Primorye went to military unit No. 33917 for military service. The unit is located in Komsomolsk-on-Amur and belongs to the railway troops. Among the recruits was Andrei Smirnov (the name and surname of the Primorian resident have been changed).
Last week his wife called our office. She said that her husband writes about beatings and bullying by old-time soldiers, “grandfathers,” in the unit. Moreover, beatings and bullying are of a pronounced nationalist character: Dagestani soldiers beat up Nedagestani soldiers. Nedagestani soldiers are afraid to resist. Allegedly, the Dagestan criminal group is strong in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, and it can deal with the offenders of fellow tribesmen in the most cruel way. In particular, the Dagestani soldiers threatened to kill those colleagues who "will rock the boat."
Dagestanis also beat Primorsk. They beat off the kidneys of several recruits. The guys were sent to the medical unit. According to the soldiers, the command of the unit does not want to send them to the city polyclinic even with the most serious injuries, after bullying by the Dagestanis - they are afraid that the media and human rights activists will find out about the mess on the territory of the unit. Andrei Smirnov spent three days in the medical unit, and as soon as he ended, according to the doctors there, internal bleeding, he was again sent to march on the parade ground. The officers generally do not try to intervene in the ethnic conflict among the conscripts.
After another beating of their colleagues, the Primorye dwellers decided to fight back. They thoroughly beat the Russophobic Caucasians. After that, the Dagestanis gathered an impressive crowd of their “grandfathers” relatives and threatened the Primorye with reprisals.
Here are some quotes from Andrei Smirnov's letters to his wife.
“In such a short time, we have already managed to seriously understand where the devil has brought us! I had heard a lot about the army and was ready for anything, but to be honest, I was not ready for such events (about what the "dag" say). I just want to serve like everyone else: no better and no worse."
“After the oath, I move from the training unit to the company and there, according to the“Dag”, I learn the beauty of army life! Whether I come back or not, I don’t care. I don’t really want to run away, because I don’t want to go to jail.”
“I am worried that when I learn to be a sergeant and command a platoon, there will be Dagestanis in it. And the sergeant has such a policy: if you want to live, command only the Russians. And it is better not to touch the Dagestanis, since you may not live to see the "demobilization". Here are our demobels and are silent, although they have a desire to teach them a lesson (Dagestanis - approx. RA) no less than ours. But life is dearer."
“And the service in this place damned by God and the devil is even stifling and worse! Every rabble is gathered here: convicts, drug addicts, those with a suspended sentence. And we, 20 residents of Primorye, why they drove here is not clear. After all, half of them have higher education, they have professions, rights, etc.”.
“Imagine, in the unit there are more than 1000 people, of which only 50 are Dagestanis, in each company there are 6 people on average. And these 50 people hold the whole piece. All sergeants are afraid of them, and today we, Primorye residents, saw that all officers are afraid of them too."
“And we, 20 residents of Primorye, could not stand it and got rid of the bastards because they beat three guys with the whole company. We 20 swooped down on 6 and chopped them down pretty well. The officers saw this, scolded the Dagestanis, like a mother to a daughter. And that's all. An hour later, the Dagestanis gathered a crowd and began to threaten us, Primorye residents."
“Here all the demobels went crazy when they saw that we had chopped up the Dagestanis. Nobody has done this before us."
I called the commander of Unit 33917, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Kandaurov. He said that, yes, there was an attempt on the part of the Dagestani soldiers to subdue the Nedagestani soldiers, but this attempt was stopped. True, as the lieutenant colonel noted, the intervention of the local FSB was needed. The Chekists pacified the Dagestanis. And now the situation in the unit is normal.
However, the Primorye soldiers say that no improvement has been observed in the unit.
Conflicts in military units on ethnic grounds in the Russian army are becoming commonplace. As a rule, conflicts are provoked by soldiers conscripted from the republics of the North Caucasus. Not more than a month ago, fifty Dagestanis tried to establish their own order in a motorized rifle unit in the city of Aleisk, Altai Territory. Russian soldiers were forced to calm them down with their fists. The command of the Siberian Military District intervened and made Russian soldiers the “scapegoats” in the situation. Allegedly, the Russians humiliated the national dignity of a small but proud mountain people.
What is happening in the current Russian army is very similar to the situation in the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) in the early 90s of the last century. There, one after another, conflicts on ethnic and religious grounds began to occur between Serbs and Croats, Serbs and Muslims, Croats and Muslims. Moreover, conflicts took place both between soldiers and between officers. Later, separatist inclinations began in the Yugoslav republics, but the JNA was unable to stop them - it, in fact, collapsed due to its own internal contradictions.
Given the exacerbation of armed clashes in the North Caucasus region, including on ethnic grounds, the Russian Army, into which representatives of almost all ethnic groups living in Russia are called up, could take on the function of instilling a sense of internationalism among young soldiers. However, the reality suggests the opposite: in the army, ethnic strife is only exacerbating.
I hope that the military prosecutor's office will start checking the information regarding part No. 33917. And "AV", in turn, will monitor the development of the situation with the Primorsky soldiers.
