Soldiers' mothers report on brutal beating of conscript from Krasnodar region

The Soldiers' Mothers Committee claims that a 19-year-old resident of Krasnodar region in Kuban, drafted to the army, was beaten and dropped from the train during transportation of a group of soldiers from Krasnodar region to Khabarovsk distribution centre. "On the way, the soldier was brutally beaten and thrown out on the rails at the siding near the town of Shilka, Chita region. He was found by railwaymen and brought to the district hospital," Valentina Saleeva, representative of the Krasnodar region Soldiers' Mothers Committee, has reported today.

"The most surprising thing is that in the unit where the soldiers have been brought nobody expressed concern about the absence of a soldier. According to our knowledge, the officer accompanying the group reported to the command that he had brought the entire group," she notes.

According to her, the soldier's mother has been informed on the accident by a militia officer from the town of Shilka summoned by the hospital doctors. In her turn, the woman addressed the Soldiers' Mothers Committee with a request to clarify the situation. "Only after we have applied to the General Military Prosecutor's Office in Moscow they confirmed that the soldier was really missing from the unit and that they would question the accompanying officer who was responsible for the accident," says Saleeva.

"Interfax reports that, citing the doctors, she said that the soldier had been inflicted serious bodily injuries: he suffered from a lacerated wound of his head, several broken ribs, trauma of numerous internal organs."

For reference, the series of scandals connected with abnormal service relations in the army began with the incident with Private Andrei Sychev who had been beaten by a group of drunken old-timers from the training process support battalion at Cheliabinsk tank school. Sychev was placed to the hospital where his legs and genitals were amputated.