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#3 - JRL 6588
Russian soldiers desert posts to escape commander's
beating: lobby group
MOSCOW, Dec 4 (AFP) - Sixteen Russian conscripts fled their posts in Moscow to escape the abuse of their drunken commanding officer, a soldiers' support group said Wednesday.
"They fled because of the violence inflicted by the commanding officer of the Gasilin group who, in a drunken state, beat a soldier with a shovel handle, injuring his leg," said Lyubov Kuznetsova of the Soldiers' Mothers, which lobbies for servicemen's rights.
She said the soldier was heavily bruised.
The conscripts fled to the group's Moscow bureau after deserting their post at Naro-Fominsk, in the Moscow region, on Tuesday, Kuznetsova told AFP.
She said the men had not deserted the army altogether, and have since been assigned to another post after contacting a center set up to reassign soldiers who flee their posts but do not aim to desert.
The unit's commanding officer has been suspended pending an investigation, said Vitaly Gusak, spokesman for the region's military command, confirming that 16 soldiers had deserted.
"All the servicemen were unarmed and the reason why they have done this is currently being determined," the Interfax news agency quoted the military command's press service as saying.
Desertions are frequent in the 1.1-million-strong Russian armed forces, where conditions are harsh and recruits are often subjected to bullying and violence.
Russia has been attempting to upgrade and modernize its chronically underfunded armed forces, and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov has proposed setting up a small but fully professional force as the backbone of the country's defenses by 2007 while leaving the highly unpopular conscription almost completely intact.
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