19 September 2014, 07:02
Russian MoD intends to recruit 500 soldiers from Chechnya
500 young men from Chechnya are expected to be called to military service in the Russian Army. The Chechen authorities do not rule out that the number of recruits will grow over the years.
Earlier, the "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Chechnya has not seen the large-scale conscription to the Russian army since 1992. In the autumn of 2001, Chechnya held an experiment with a call of 70 young men to military service. All of them were sent for military service to a sports unit of the motorized rifle brigade deployed in the Moscow Military District. However, several months later, all conscripts from Chechnya were returned home because of the numerous conflicts with colleagues and officers of the military unit.
On September 18, it was reported that in accordance with the decision of Sergey Shoigu, the Russian Defence Minister, 500 young men from Chechnya will be called to military service. The decision was made at the request of the Chechen authorities. According to the Instagram page of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, the number of recruits will grow in the future.
The "Caucasian Knot" has also reported that earlier, the media were widely discussing the unconfirmed information about the "secret directive of the General Headquarters of the Russian Federation", which allegedly recommended not to call to the army young people of the Caucasus and natives of the Caucasian republics living in other regions of Russia. However, officials from the Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD) have refuted the information.
Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.
