Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov has ordered that commanders who promptly report abuses by their subordinates against conscripts will not be held criminally responsible, the Defense Ministry said Tuesday.
The announcement comes after nearly a month of intense public debate about hazing in the military prompted by the case of Private Andrei Sychyov, who was beaten at his Chelyabinsk barracks on New Year's Eve and had to have his legs and genitals amputated.
Sychyov's mother, Galina, told Interfax on Tuesday that she met Ivanov on Feb. 14, and that he apologized to her for what happened to her son and promised to punish those responsible.
Meanwhile, campaigners for armed forces reform on Tuesday called for the ministry to protect conscripts against forced labor and abuse by their superiors.
Lyudmila Vakhnina of the Memorial human rights center told reporters that the practice of using soldiers as free labor was still widespread in the armed forces. "Soldiers are still forced to work in commercial enterprises. ... Every morning they are put into trucks and taken to work," Vakhnina told a news conference called to draw attention to abuses in the military ahead of Defenders of the Fatherland Day, the country's traditional military holiday, on Thursday.
Vakhnina said that according to a survey she had conducted into conscripts being used as free labor, casual labor markets hiring out soldiers were functioning in Khabarovsk, North Ossetia and St. Petersburg.
Over the last three years Memorial has documented 150 cases in 33 regions of soldiers being forced by their commanders to work as free labor, she said.
"In half of these cases, soldiers were forced to work in commercial enterprises or factories, while in one-fourth they worked for their commanders or for private individuals," Vakhnina said.
Vakhnina said that while some cases were relatively trivial -- one soldier had to work as a disc jockey -- others were highly dangerous. In one example, three soldiers serving in the Caucasus were sold as slaves and one of them managed to get free only after five years.
"It's a mistake to think that soldiers are only used for short-term jobs. They usually work for months and in many cases throughout the term of their service," she said.
In Volgograd a soldier worked for 1 1/2 years on a farm and he told Memorial that another 10 to 18 soldiers, depending of the time of the year, would work with him. Memorial also registered a case of a commander in Samara who in 2004 sent soldiers to work at the local Coca-Cola factory.
"If someone gets injured or dies, the commanders cover it up and the soldier and his family don't get the benefits they are entitled to," Vakhnina said.
At the same news conference Sergei Krivenko, an expert on alternatives to military service, said that even if soldiers reported abuses, military prosecutors in most cases turned a blind eye.
The announcement comes after nearly a month of intense public debate about hazing in the military prompted by the case of Private Andrei Sychyov, who was beaten at his Chelyabinsk barracks on New Year's Eve and had to have his legs and genitals amputated.
Sychyov's mother, Galina, told Interfax on Tuesday that she met Ivanov on Feb. 14, and that he apologized to her for what happened to her son and promised to punish those responsible.
Meanwhile, campaigners for armed forces reform on Tuesday called for the ministry to protect conscripts against forced labor and abuse by their superiors.
Lyudmila Vakhnina of the Memorial human rights center told reporters that the practice of using soldiers as free labor was still widespread in the armed forces. "Soldiers are still forced to work in commercial enterprises. ... Every morning they are put into trucks and taken to work," Vakhnina told a news conference called to draw attention to abuses in the military ahead of Defenders of the Fatherland Day, the country's traditional military holiday, on Thursday.
Vakhnina said that according to a survey she had conducted into conscripts being used as free labor, casual labor markets hiring out soldiers were functioning in Khabarovsk, North Ossetia and St. Petersburg.
Over the last three years Memorial has documented 150 cases in 33 regions of soldiers being forced by their commanders to work as free labor, she said.
"In half of these cases, soldiers were forced to work in commercial enterprises or factories, while in one-fourth they worked for their commanders or for private individuals," Vakhnina said.
Vakhnina said that while some cases were relatively trivial -- one soldier had to work as a disc jockey -- others were highly dangerous. In one example, three soldiers serving in the Caucasus were sold as slaves and one of them managed to get free only after five years.
"It's a mistake to think that soldiers are only used for short-term jobs. They usually work for months and in many cases throughout the term of their service," she said.
In Volgograd a soldier worked for 1 1/2 years on a farm and he told Memorial that another 10 to 18 soldiers, depending of the time of the year, would work with him. Memorial also registered a case of a commander in Samara who in 2004 sent soldiers to work at the local Coca-Cola factory.
"If someone gets injured or dies, the commanders cover it up and the soldier and his family don't get the benefits they are entitled to," Vakhnina said.
At the same news conference Sergei Krivenko, an expert on alternatives to military service, said that even if soldiers reported abuses, military prosecutors in most cases turned a blind eye.