Fighting

Representatives of the Leningrad Military District accused Soldiers' Mothers of sabotage

The conscription campaign in St. Petersburg was marked by a loud scandal. The headquarters of the Leningrad Military District accused the organization "Soldiers' Mothers of St. Petersburg" of forgery of documents. The head of the department of conscription and preparation for military service of the Leningrad Military District, Fyodor Saraev, told Vremya Novostey that human rights activists falsified a number of certificates, “defending” Alexander Timofeev, who was drafted into the army allegedly from his school days. However, more often than not, human rights activists turn out to be right in their complaints about draft boards.

Let us recall that the “Timofeev case” was widely covered by the media during the autumn conscription campaign. The essence of the matter was that an 18-year-old boy was detained as a draft dodger and illegally transferred to serve in the army. After all, at that time he was still in the 11th grade of high school. The main argument of "Soldiers' Mothers" in defense of the conscript was the description of the director of the 153rd school of the Frunzensky district, Antonina Melnikova, in which Timofeev was presented as a successful student of the 11th grade, who, according to all laws, has no place in the army, since he has the right to graduate from school. Lawyers for human rights activists began a trial, and letters from “Soldiers’ Mothers” went to the Kremlin, and the chairman of the St. Petersburg draft commission, Governor Valentina Matvienko, received penalties from the federal authorities.

The military did not comment on the situation at the time, having initiated a review of the materials provided to them by human rights activists.

As it turned out, the boy entered school No. 153 (which turned out to be an evening school) in 2006 after two years of study at the vocational lyceum of railway transport, where, due to constant absence from classes and poor performance, he could not cope with the load and was expelled with a certificate stating that that I attended the 10th-11th grade program and received the specialty of a 2nd category repairman. These documents gave the military the full right to draft Timofeev into the army. Which is exactly what happened.

The boy's mother turned to Soldiers' Mothers, who quickly collected a package of documents. It inexplicably disappeared information that the school where Timofeev studied was an evening school, and positive characteristics of the student appeared signed by the school director. But during the audit and trial, Antonina Melnikova officially stated that she could not petition for Timofeev as an excellent student, since the boy constantly skipped classes and was not particularly successful in his studies. The military placed the responsibility for the appearance of fake certificates entirely on the Soldiers' Mothers. And the head of the department of conscription and preparation for military service of the Leningrad Military District, Fedor Saraev, called their activities “sabotage.”

As Fyodor Saraev told Vremya Novostey, similar sabotage should be feared during the coming campaigns. By the way, the military themselves admit that they suffer much more from the activity of legislators rather than human rights activists. Over the past four years, about 80 amendments to the law “On Military Duty and Military Service” have been adopted, which sometimes changed the conditions of conscription in the midst of preparations for conscription campaigns.

The latest changes will give human rights defenders a wide field of activity. Due to the next peak of the demographic crisis in the early 90s of the last century, there is now an acute shortage of young men of military age. Therefore, legislators decided that it was time to recruit more categories of citizens into the army. So, this year, technical school students and university students who do not have military departments will go to serve (out of 93 universities in the northern capital, for example, only 12 of them remain). Also, legislators decided not to give concessions to citizens convicted of non-serious crimes, whose criminal record was withdrawn or expunged. Fathers of one child will go into the army, and their wives will receive six thousand rubles a month during his absence. Deferments for those studying in educational institutions of a number of law enforcement agencies have been cancelled. Rural doctors and teachers, employees of defense enterprises, law enforcement officers, students of religious institutions, as well as gifted representatives of culture and art will serve. A number of medical deferments have also been cancelled.

As Military Commissar of St. Petersburg Igor Beskrovny told Vremya Novostey, out of 28 thousand St. Petersburg residents subject to conscription, they were instructed to recruit 1,920 people by July 15. And this is quite real. The military commissar is more concerned about the short service life - as you know, military service is now a year instead of two. Six months in training, and then six months in the army is too little time to give a recruit a full-fledged specialty.

According to human rights activists, reducing the service life to a year will change little in the army, and in the first years it will only worsen the situation. Firstly, military compliance with the law always leaves much to be desired, and Soldiers' Mothers are confident that the conscription campaign will be hot. Now, in the same barracks, “nerd students” will meet with former “light” criminals, as well as “grandfathers” (those who serve for another two and a half years) with recruits who will now be able to demobilize together with the “grandfathers.” And all this will only lead to an increase in hazing. So the military and human rights activists are already preparing for the next clashes during the draft.

Mikhail TELEKHOV, St. Petersburg