More Russian Officers Want to Leave Service Early and Commanders Go Beyond the Law to Block Them

Paul Goble

            Staunton, October 28 – Despite poll results showing the military is increasingly respected in Russian society and the harsh economic realities that often make a military career attractive, ever more junior officers are seeking to leave service early, making it more difficult for Moscow to maintain staffing levels, Aleksandra Dzhordzhevich of Novaya Gazeta reports.

            No figures are publicly available on just how many of the 250,000 officers in the Russian military may have tried to leave for family or other reasons, but a number of them have turned to lawyers and social media to report that commanders do everything they can to block them, including threats to family members (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2019/10/28/82525-raby-vs).

            In an article entitled “Slaves of the Armed Forces,” Dzhordzhevich reports on a number of cases of officers who have tried to resign their commissions and been willing to pay back the costs of their training as the law requires but who have faced what can only be described as “extra-judicial” efforts to keep them in service. 

            One of their number said that commanders are prepared to use any means necessary to retain such officers, including “bribery, blackmail and extortion” both because the military needs these men and finds it hard to  replace them and because such resignations, however justified, can have a negative effect on the careers of commanders of the units involved.

            The defense ministry says that the established rules regarding such cases, which it implies are rare, are being followed and dismisses the claims of the victims of this system.  But the growing number of cases in which such men are turning to social media and the appearance of law firms specializing in such cases suggests otherwise.