Кто из политических деятелей должен возглавить новую объединённую демократическую партию, если такая партия будет создана?

Республиканская партия России > РПР онлайн > СМИ о нас

On Eve of Draft, Ryzhkov Asks Ivanov to Quit

Days ahead of the spring draft, liberal State Duma Deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov walked into a Defense Ministry office on Wednesday to submit a letter urging Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov to resign over a hazing that forced the amputation of a conscript's legs and genitals.

Valentina Melnikova, a fellow co-leader of the opposition Republican Party, also got inside the ministry's mail department at 19 Ulitsa Znamenka, which is within sight of the Kremlin, but guards behind the door pushed out activists and reporters who tried to follow.

Minutes later, 12 conscripts came running to the front door, carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles, and lined up to block the entrance.

The letter was the latest in a series of demands for Ivanov's resignation, and it came three days before the start of spring conscription on Saturday. Ryzhkov and Melnikova, who also heads the Union of Soldiers' Mothers Committees, a human rights group, plan rallies across the country on Saturday to urge potential conscripts to stay away.

Some of the conscripts sent to block the Defense Ministry entrance read with curiosity a copy of the resignation demand, which an activist held out. Their superior, an officer, turned away when he realized what the letter was about.

"Sychyov fell victim to the military system," the letter said, referring to Andrei Sychyov, whom older conscripts in the Chelyabinsk Armor Academy beat so badly that doctors amputated his legs and genitals in January. "In this system, a soldier's life costs nothing."

Activists at Saturday's rallies will advise conscription-age men to write to President Vladimir Putin, Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov and their regional governors that they will not serve unless they are offered a guarantee that they will not be abused, Melnikova said by telephone. Rallies are planned in Moscow and 30 other cities.

Calls for an end to the abuse of conscripts have grown louder after the case of Sychyov, who is still undergoing treatment in a Moscow hospital. Last week, two independent activists submitted about 9,000 signatures to the Kremlin calling on Putin to fire Ivanov.

Ivanov said afterward, during a trip to Surgut, that he would not resign and that Sychyov's case would not disrupt the spring draft of 124,000 conscripts. The Defense Ministry had no comment on the latest resignation demand Tuesday.

Ivanov, celebrating his fifth year as defense minister on Tuesday, promised to improve discipline and safety but said it would take time. "We can't hope to solve it tomorrow with the wave of a magic wand," he said, Interfax reported.

City Hall and the Defense Ministry will try to paint a rosier picture at special festivities on Sunday that will encourage military service. The event will include performances by stuntmen and contests among potential conscripts that include taking apart and assembling a Kalashnikov rifle, said Master, an association of stuntmen that is producing the event.

The festival will be the first of its kind, said a spokesman for the city's Youth and Family Affairs Committee, which is helping organize the event.

The Moscow Times.com
30.03.2006