Or deceive men from the impoverished regions of Russia about the conditions of work to induce them to sign up as contract soldiers?

OK, I’ll stop being a smart-ass long enough to say thanks for bringing this to general attention – you are right about the potential PR upside for Moscow, but the Kremlin’s record in the past couple of years of reaping potential PR benefits that were out there for the taking has not been good.

By the way, the latest story (from late last week) about the mistreatment of contract soldiers (to say nothing of the situation among the ranks of draftees, where hazing and other abuses continue) was broken by the newspaper Trud and can be read (in Russian) on the Echo of Moscow radio website:

The story (this is just my quick synopsis, not a word-for-word translation) is that soldiers in the 42nd motorized division were hired to serve in Chechnya on a contract basis and were promised enough money to make them well-to-do upon their return home (this promise, which seems to be fulfilled at least sometimes, is the main reason people enlist for contract service in the Russian army). But after they signed up, they were forced to pay for their uniforms, fed so inadequately that they had to buy additional provisions, and – most outrageous – they were told to buy spare parts to fix military equipment which had been damaged before they reported for service. These included parts for the “Grad” system, which they had to buy from Chechens, who (according to the contract soldiers) had access to spare parts for any military hardware. The crowning offense outlined in the article, though, is that the contract soldiers’ commanding officers told them which Chechens to go to in order to purchase the spare parts. 85 of these soldiers deserted as a result.

postCount(‘Beslan’); | postCountTB(‘Beslan’); Last September, a raid by insurgents on a school in Beslan, North Ossetia, left 330 people, many of them children, dead. Now, some eight months later, the only surviving hostage-taker, Nur-Pashi Kulayev (a …

Welcome to the Carnival of Revolutions! In this time, in our time, we’re witnessing history unfolding every day, a spontaneous explosion of political activity is breaking out around the world. We’ve seen it in Ukraine. We’ve seen it in Lebanon….

Welcome to the Carnival of Revolutions! In this time, in our time, we’re witnessing history unfolding every day, a spontaneous explosion of political activity is breaking out around the world. We’ve seen it in Ukraine. We’ve seen it in Lebanon….

CARNIVAL OF REVOLUTIONS HOME BASE: Scroll Down For Upcoming Hosting Schedule, Submission Criteria, Etc. Welcome to the Carnival of Revolutions! In this time, in our time, we’re witnessing history unfolding every day, a spontaneous explosion of politica…