- MOSCOW -- The Red Army used
to march across Red Square in frightening formation, the Soviet epitome
of a disciplined and elite fighting force, but today's conscripts have
apparently succumbed to a disease which infects all levels of modern Russian
society: thievery and corruption.
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- The soldiers, sailors and airmen are more likely to be
found picking pockets, defrauding the state or selling their equipment
than firing a gun or driving a tank, Russia's chief military prosecutor
said.
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- In unusually blunt comments, Alexander Savenkov said
the armed forces were riddled with corruption from top to bottom, and more
and more senior officers appeared to be putting their hand in the till.
A total of 7,300 servicemen have been convicted of crimes in the first
half of this year, and of those, 800 were officers.
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- "Unfortunately, the main category of convicted officers
is senior officers, he said. "The number of convicted officers with
the rank of colonel is no longer counted in the dozens, we have more than
100."
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- Prosecutor Savenkov said corruption extended to the Defence
Ministry headquarters in Moscow and his prosecutors were investigating
the conduct of at least two generals. Cases involving two other generals
had already been sent to court.
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- The sacking of General Anatoly Kvashnin, head of the
army's general staff, and of three other generals, appears to signal deep,
high-level discontent with the armed forces which have struggled since
the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Prosecutor Savenkov said 500m
roubles (£10m) had been embezzled from the state by military officers
in the first six months of this year.
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- At least 27 military officials were investigated for
taking bribes to fraudulently declare conscripts "unfit for service"
and most had already been found guilty, he added.
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- Russia's armed forces have suffered other embarrassing
cases of corruption this year, most notably on the scandal-ridden nuclear
flagship of the Northern Fleet, Peter the Great. The ship's chief accountant
siphoned £280,000 from sailors' pay. The officer bought flats, cars
and electronics equipment and his case was far from isolated.
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- Corruption among Russian forces in the breakaway republic
of Chechnya is known to be particularly acute, with soldiers even selling
their weapons to the separatists, the people they are supposed to be fighting.
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- But analysts say the army is famously resistant to fraud-busting
investigations. "The less transparent the agency [such as the Defence
Ministry] the more corrupt it is," Georgy Satarov, head of the Idem
think-tank, told The Moscow Times. "That's the rule."
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- In 1994, a journalist, Dmitry Kholodov, who was investigating
corruption among Russian troops withdrawing from the former East Germany
was killed when a briefcase he had been given exploded.
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- Reforms to make the army a leaner, cleaner fighting machine
are in the pipeline. Military service is likely to be cut from two years
to six months and there will be fewer excuses to avoid conscription.
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- © 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=545745
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