Hazing suspected

A new emergency occurred in the Russian army. On Tuesday morning, the prosecutor's office of the Volga-Ural Military District announced the death of a conscript soldier in the Asbest airborne military unit (Sverdlovsk region) Evgeniy Malakhov. The military remained silent about the incident for four days. As the press service of the prosecutor's office of the Volga-Ural Military District told Vremya Novostey, 22-year-old Malakhov was found dead on the morning of February 9 at his post.

“When he went on duty, the soldier received a Kalashnikov assault rifle and already at his post he shot himself in the chest. The young man died from the wound he received,” the press service of the Prosecutor’s Office of the Criminal Investigation Department reported. No signs of an attack on the sentry or traces of attempts to enter the territory of the protected facility could be found. Therefore, the main version of the investigation was suicide.

The prosecutor's office opened a criminal case under Art. 110 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (incitement to suicide) and is now interrogating possible witnesses of hazing. An investigative team headed by the military prosecutor of the Yekaterinburg garrison has left for the unit. The deceased was drafted from the Metallurgical District of Chelyabinsk, the military registration and enlistment office that called him was informed of the death of the young man. In the interests of the investigation, the prosecutor's office and the command of the military district refuse to comment. The security unit of the Airborne Forces also does not comment on this emergency. It is only known that so far there are no defendants in this criminal case - it was initiated after the fact.

Public organizations have so far refrained from assessing what happened. Another death of a conscript soldier is another blow to the reputation of the army. On February 7, Chelyabinsk received a message about an incident involving Pyotr Babin, who was called up from the Southern Urals and was serving in the Astrakhan region. Once at the post, the young man began firing indiscriminately at his colleagues, killing two, wounding one, and then shot himself. At the end of January, it became known about the death of cadet Nikita Sanitov of the Chelyabinsk Higher Military Aviation School, who also committed suicide. The guy was called up from the Irkutsk region.

At the beginning of the year, the parents of Chelyabinsk resident Vladimir Shurayev, serving in the Nizhny Novgorod region, accidentally learned that their son had been in a coma for several days. According to investigators, for refusing to carry out the order of the warrant officer, Shurayev received ten blows to the head, five blows to the neck, and one kick to the stomach.

Mikhail VIUGIN, Sverdlovsk region