Complaint of soldiers from "Ashuluk" Testing Ground in Astrakhan Region to be considered Defence Minister Serdyukov

The Russian Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov plans to clear out the situation with the soldiers from the "Ashuluk" Testing Ground, who complained to human rights defenders of their unbearable service conditions, said Valentina Melnikova, the head of the Russian Committee of Soldiers' Mothers.

"On November 10, I met Minister Serdyukov and gave him a report telling about the service conditions in 'Ashuluk'. He said that he had instructed to deal with the issue," Valentina Melnikova told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

She added that the Russian Committee of Soldiers' Mothers had accumulated a lot of complaints of this sort from different regions of Russia.

"Unfortunately, assistants of the Defence Minister fail to inform him about everything. There are also complaints from the Chelyabinsk Region, Siberia and Far East – they dispose ammunition there by blowing up in small quarries; the situation is very nervous. Recruits are not trained to do it; they are not special troops. Besides, they have poor living conditions – bad nutrition and absence of showers," said the chair of the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia.

According to Melnikova, in their report to Minister Serdyukov, the Committee demanded from the army leadership to dispose the ammunition by using special technological facilities, as well as to oblige officers to prepare their soldiers to the disposal process.

"Serdyukov had promised that big bombs will be disposed at factories. In any event, the stocks of ammunition are huge; powerful shells are kept there in old and rotten wooden boxes that fall apart while handling," said Valentina Melnikova.

The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent has failed to get any additional information on the reception of the rights defenders' document at the Ministry of Defence.