Caucasian residents and natives not to be recruited, said Chelyabinsk military commissar

Nikolai Zakharov, Military Commissar of the Chelyabinsk Region, has stated that now the army will not draft residents and natives of the Caucasian republics who live in other regions of Russia; however, this information is not confirmed by the group of informational support of the Central Military District of the Russian Ministry of Defence.

Let us note here that Chechnya now runs the campaign of registering potential conscripts, but so far the republic, the only region of Northern Caucasus and Russia, does not practice the full-scale military recruitment; and only a small fraction of the total number of conscripts are sent to serve at the subdivisions of Interior Troops of the Russian MIA named "Sever" (North) and "Yug" (South).

According to Nikolai Zakharov, the General Staff ordered not to recruit residents and natives of the Caucasian republics in order to reduce the recent sharp increase of national tension, and at least to partially solve the problem of hazing and national groups in the army. The commissar told about it late last week at a press conference dedicated to the spring draft launched on April 1.

Meanwhile, the group of informational support of the Central Military District, of the Russian Ministry of Defence said that there were and could be no verbal orders of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation about recruiting these or those groups of population. The group also said that, perhaps, the commissar had misunderstood something at the sitting in Moscow; and a respective talk will be held with him.

It should be noted that on March 25 Moscow hosted an extended sitting of the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office (CMPO), where the Chief Military Prosecutor Sergey Fridinskiy stated that the Army observes a surge of hazing - "nationalistic" gangs establish their order in military barracks. According to Mr Fridinskiy, recruits from Northern Caucasus are particularly notable in this respect - they form their clannish communities at the stage of sending to military units, the "Interfax" reports. 

The fact that the instruction of the General Staff not to recruit conscripts from the Caucasus really exists is indirectly confirmed by the recent report of the Military Commissariat of Dagestan, saying that this year's spring draft quota for the republic was dropped from usual 2000-4000 recruits down to just 400 persons, the "Vedomosti" newspaper writes.