Conscript fights for life after army bullying nightmare

Military prosecutors and top officers promised a thorough investigation into one of the most brutal bullying incidents to be reported in the Russian military in years – a soldier who underwent several amputations because of beatings and torture by fellow servicemen.

As investigators probed the incident, rights groups attacked military officials for condoning rampant bullying in the military and warned such crimes would continue until the nation abolished conscription.

Doctors said Private Andrei Sychev, 18, remained in a grave condition after his legs and genitals were amputated following the New Year’s Eve incident at the Chelyabinsk Tank Academy, in which older soldiers forced him to spend hours in an unnatural crouched position and brutally beat him.

At least seven other conscripts were also beaten in the same incident, but they sustained less serious injuries, prosecutors said.

A total of eight servicemen, including several officers, had been detained in the Ural Mountains city of Chelyabinsk, about 1,180 miles east of Moscow, prosecutors said, according to Russian news reports.

Sychev was taken to hospital only several days after the beating, when he was already in a critical condition and unable to stand. Prosecutors are also investigating why doctors at the unit denied him immediate treatment.

Authorities called Sychev’s mother, Galina, only after he had already undergone his first amputation. “Why didn’t anyone tell me: ‘Come here, your son is in grave condition’?” she said on TV, wiping her tears.

Sychev, who is unable to speak, scribbled the name of his most cruel tormentor on a piece of paper.

“He tries to speak, but he can’t, and he can’t eat,” his mother said. “When we come to visit, we just stand and try to caress and soothe him.”

Sychev’s sister, Marina, also interviewed by Russian television, recalled that he had pleaded for his family to come to Chelyabinsk and take him home on a New Year leave permitted by authorities.

When his relatives said they could not make the trip, Sychev said: “What shall I do here? I have got sick of looking at these drunken bastards,” according to his sister.

The head of the Chelyabinsk health department, Vitaly Teslenko, said on NTV television that Sychev had also been diagnosed with sepsis.

Russian defence minister Sergei Ivanov promised to punish the culprits. “We won’t cover anything, or anyone, up,” he said.

But earlier yesterday, Ivanov appeared to play down the incident, saying on Ekho Mosvky radio that “there is nothing serious there, otherwise I would certainly have known about it”.

The remarks sparked outrage by rights groups, who blamed military commanders for violating soldiers’ rights and turning a blind eye to the vicious bullying that plagues the armed forces.

According to official statistics, 16 died in such incidents last year, but experts said the true number was much higher, with many conscripts driven to suicide by vicious abuses and other bullying deaths written off as resulting from illnesses.

The defence ministry said 276 servicemen had killed themselves last year, but offered no further details.

Russia’s chief military prosecutor Alexander Savenkov acknowledged last year that incidents of bullying had risen over the past years, and said half of military suicides were caused by bullying.

Human Rights Watch and other rights groups have described bullying as one of Russia’s biggest rights problems and urged the Russian authorities to combat it.

Bullying practices involve making new conscripts perform endless tasks - buying alcohol, shining boots, making beds or obtaining money for senior soldiers. It also involves physical abuse, usually by drunken soldiers, such as beatings with stools or iron rods and sometimes even sexual harassment.

All Russian men aged between 18 and 27 are required to serve two years in the armed forces – three years for the navy.