3000 Russian soldiers die per year

Sykk

And they're not even at war with anybody..

An estimated 3,000 Russian soldiers die every year despite the fact the country is not at war.


The shocking figure comes from a mothers' rights charity in Moscow.
Olga and Anatoly Kolychev visit their son Ivan's grave every day.
Flowers and other effects are their attempt at honouring his memory which they feel has been trampled on.
At their home in Siberia, they showed Sky News a video of their son in uniform - smiling as he kisses his girlfriend while on leave.
Ivan served in the army for 18 months. His parents described him as a happy and open young man who was at first proud to be a soldier.
But then, the cruelty began.
Ivan told his mother that he and his fellow soldiers had to eat stray dogs to stay alive. Their senior officers were starving and beating them.
One reason for the high number of deaths is that the whole system of military service is ancient.
Veronika Marchenko, founder of The Mother's Right Foundation
She said: "An officer called us late at night and said - your son got bored with his life and hanged himself. They said come and pick him up.
"Why did they tell me this on the phone? It seemed like they were teasing us."
Mrs Kolychev said her son would never have taken his own life.
She showed Sky News a certificate proclaiming his excellent service - which was contradicted after his death by officers who said he was a bad soldier.
The mother said: "There is no order in the army. Commanders don't fulfil their duty.
"Every time I saw my son's unit commander he was drunk. Even when they handed out my son's coffin, the commander was drunk."
Sky News obtained a video filmed by soldiers showing the sort of brutality that goes on.

Olga Kolychev with pictures of her Russian soldier son Ivan
It shows one officer going down a line of young men who are each braced for a punch or kick. They are resigned to it.
It is accepted as the norm by many of those who serve - but the consequences lead to an alarming number of bereaved families.
The Mothers' Right Foundation in Moscow fights for families like Ivan's - if not to disprove spurious suicide claims, then at least to allow some form of compensation.
Its founder, Veronika Marchenko, said: "One reason for the high number of deaths is that the whole system of military service is ancient - another is that there is no proper investigation into deaths and other crimes."
Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev says the modernisation of the Russian army is vital - he plans to fully re-equip the armed forces with modern military hardware within the next 10 years.
The focus does seem to be more on weapons than the treatment of the people who serve.
Some 280,000 soldiers are in the process of being conscripted right now. For these young men, a life of humiliation and brutality seems almost inevitable.

Source

Tl;dr version: Read it you lazy twat!


Desperate stuff.. Watch the video, it has more insight..

Absurdum

In IMF Ireland, nobody cares.

Stercus Accidit

That's crazy, I had no idea.

squod

That reporter's a bleedin roide.

danwhite88

simply not enough. should be alot more if you ask me

landsleaving

squod wrote: »

That reporter's a bleedin roide.

Don't... Don't.... Don't believe the hype.

biko

There's plenty of vids on the net showing Russian recruits being beaten and abused by their officers.
It's a very very hard life in the army over there and I'm not sure all suicides are actually suicides.

mikemac

There a lot of deaths over homebrew vodka

Can be lethal

Duggy747

In Soviet Russia.............eh............soldiers are brutally treated and beaten. They do all sorts of methods to "stiffen" them up, one is to have them stand in a line while an officer clobbers the shìte out of them (slapping, kicking, and whacking them violently with thick sticks), if anyone breaks down our breaks out of the line then they're solely punished. Plenty of videos out there showing this kind of stuff.

It's not suprising that there's such a high suicide rate (If you can count all of them as "suicide"), you'd need nerves of steel to withstand the sub-human treatment you have to endure.

Morlar

An estimated 3,000 Russian soldiers die every year despite the fact the country is not at war.

I think it's important to know how many of the 3,000 die due to bullying/suicide and how many die due to violent conflict that doesn't get classed as 'war'.

Ross_Mahon

I would have thought these methods of 'training' were done with

thebigbiffo

thats what ya get for russian into a career choice:pac:

danniemcq

squod wrote: »

That reporter's a bleedin roide.

wonder how many people will click the above link after seeing this comment!

I for one did!

Manic Moran

Morlar wrote: »

I think it's important to know how many of the 3,000 die due to bullying/suicide and how many die due to violent conflict that doesn't get classed as 'war'.

It's a valid question.

That said, 'Valid' training is not risk-free either. The military is a dangerous business, even when you're not fighting a war. Due to the tactics used, the Russians even expect a higher death rate than the US in training. For example, casualty rates in airborne operations for the Russian Army are substantially higher than in Western nations because of their practice of chucking vehicles out of aircraft with their crews in them. It makes military sense in wartime, but is decidedly riskier in peacetime.

By way of comparison, look at the published figures for the US military.*

In 1985, the US military lost, 2,250 personnel, of which 1,476 were accidents. (The rest were illness, 363, suicide 265 and murder 111). Not a single one was due to hostile fire.

Fast forward to 1995, and the US military has downsized dramatically, but the total deaths is 1,040, of which 538 were accidents. 7 were killed by enemy action (listed as 'terrorist attacks', the 'hostile action' number is '0').

Go forward another decade, 2005, and now we're in two wars. Total dead for the year, 1,941 of which 649 were accidents, 289 illness, 181 suicide, 52 murders and 739 due to hostile action.

So to compare to the Russian military, which is substantially bigger (even today) than the US military, the figures aren't actually all that far off the US on a size basis. Russian army life is unusally brutal, but not unusually lethal.

There are arguments that Western Army life is a little too soft.

NTM

*From: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32492.pdf

citizen_p

Morlar wrote: »

I think it's important to know how many of the 3,000 die due to bullying/suicide and how many die due to violent conflict that doesn't get classed as 'war'.

yeah, theres alot of regions in russia that are fairly bad, chechneya being the most notable, south ossetia last year also.


+1 to above to, interesting figures.
quite alot of murder.

Manic Moran

quite alot of murder.

Bear in mind, that accounts for all deaths of military personnel, not all deaths caused by military actions. 'Accidents' includes a soldier driving home from work and being T-boned by a drunk driver, and 'murder' includes an airman being shot whilst being robbed while on holiday in New York City.

The OP article does not give any indication that the Russian figures are not calculated the same way.

NTM

Tubsandtiles

In that case our army would be gone in about... a Bus Eireann trip from Cork To Belfast

danniemcq

Tubsandtiles wrote: »

In that case our army would be gone in about... a Bus Eireann trip from Cork To Belfast

am i missing a news story or somthing?

sensibleken

RIP-

Russians incessantly putrifying