Russian draft collects `bums, real scum' as most defer dangerous military

[Rose Siding]

MOSCOW - A certain amount of panic will take hold of Russia on Friday, when the country begins its annual military draft.

Generals will be panicked that they'll end up with another crop of druggies, convicts and misfits. Mothers will be terrified at handing over their sons to a military that's notorious for its brutal hazing of new recruits.

And tens of thousands of draft-age young men will fear for their lives as they face two years of menial labor, sadistic senior officers, and, worst of all, a possible deployment to Chechnya. Many will wangle phony deferments, fail to report or simply flee.

"What (the military) ends up with are the social fallouts, trigger-happy people, bums, the homeless, the real scum," said Pavel Felgenhauer, a military analyst in Moscow. "And they've all got guns."

Shootings of officers, desertions, suicides, alcoholism, torture in the barracks and drug abuse are rampant in today's Russian military, according to Felgenhauer and other experts.

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/11269302.htm

[lenidog]

1. Yes ever since the fall of Communism

more and more people have been wrangling out of conscription leaving them with the dregs. Food sucks, the training is getting more dangerous, the labor is usually backbreaking (building roads, harvesting, etc), get sent to Chechnya and if you do get paid its the eqivalent of 12 bucks a month. Not exactly the way most people want to spend 2 years.