Ukraine’s Defence Forces killed 480 Russian invaders over the past day. In total, 274,950 Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion.
Throughout the first year of their military service, hundreds of thousands of new recruits in the Russian armed forces face grossly abusive treatment at the hands of more senior conscripts. Under a system called dedovshchina, or “rule of the grandfathers,” second-year conscripts force new recruits to live in a year-long state of pointless servitude, punish them violently for any infractions of official or informal rules, and abuse them gratuitously. Dozens of conscripts are killed every year as a result of these abuses, and thousands sustain serious-and often permanent-damage to their physical and mental health. Hundreds commit or attempt suicide and thousands run away from their units. This abuse takes place in a broader context of denial of conscripts’ rights to adequate food and access to medical care, which causes many to go hungry or develop serious health problems, and abusive treatment by officers.
This report, which documents these abuses, is based on three years of research that have allowed Human Rights Watch to analyze the dedovshchina system, its consequences for the physical and mental well-being of conscripts, and the extent to which treatment under dedovshchina is inconsistent with Russian and international human rights standards. During 2002 and 2003, we conducted research in seven regions across Russia, including Cheliabinsk, Moscow, Novokuznetsk, Novosibirsk, St. Petersburg, Vladivostok, and Volgograd. We interviewed more than one hundred conscripts, their parents, officials, lawyers, NGO experts, and former military servicemen. The conscripts served on more than fifty bases in more than twenty-five of Russia’s eighty-nine provinces. We also extensively studied the archive files of several soldiers’ rights groups. In February 2004, we had a meeting to discuss our findings with officials of the Ministry of Defense in Moscow.
Dedovshchina exists in military units throughout the Russian Federation. It establishes an informal hierarchy of conscripts, based on the length of their service, and a corresponding set of rights and duties for each group of the hierarchy. As in militaries around the world, newcomers have essentially no rights under the system-they must earn them over time. At the beginning of their service, conscripts are “not eligible” to eat, wash, relax, sleep, be sick, or even keep track of time. Thus, any restrictions placed on these functions are considered permissible. The life of a new recruit consists of countless obligations to do the bidding of those conscripts who have served long enough-a year or more-to have earned rights in the informal hierarchy. Second-year conscripts, called the dedy[1],have practically unlimited power with respect to their junior colleagues. They can order them to do whatever they like, no matter how demeaning or absurd the task, while remaining beyond the strictures of the Military Code of Conduct or any other set of formal rules. If a first-year conscript refuses to oblige or fails in the assigned task, the senior conscript is free to administer whatever punishment he deems appropriate, no matter how violent.
Dedovshchina is distinguished by predation, violence, and impunity. During their first year of service, conscripts live under the constant threat of violence for failing to comply with limitless orders and demands of dedy. Many conscripts spent entire days fulfilling these orders, which range from the trivial, like shining the seniors’ boots or making their beds, to the predatory, such as handing over food items to them at meal time, or procuring (legally or illegally) money, alcohol or cigarettes for them. First-year conscripts face violent punishment for any failure-and frequently not only for their own individual failure, as punishment is often collective-to conform to the expectations of dedy. As a rule, punishment happens at night after officers have gone home. Dedy wake the first-year conscripts up in the middle of the night and make them perform push-ups or knee bends, often accompanied by beatings, until they drop. First-year conscripts also routinely face gratuitous abuse, often involving severe beatings or sexual abuse, from drunken dedy at night. Dedy sometimes beat new recruits with stools or iron rods.
Dedovshchina has all the trappings of a classic initiation system; indeed, it likely emerged as one several decades ago. Such systems, which exist in many social institutions around the world, including schools, athletic clubs, and especially the armed forces of many countries, can play a legitimate role in military structures by enhancinggroup cohesion and esprit de corps. Initiation systems license the group to erase a certain degree of individuality in its members, and the possibility of abuse is inherent in that license.
While dedovshchina may once have served the purpose of initiation, it has in the past twenty years degenerated into a system in which second-year conscripts, once victims of abuse and deprivation themselves, enjoy untrammeled power to abuse their juniors without rule, restriction, or fear of punishment.The result is not enhanced esprit de corps but lawlessness and gross abuse of human rights.The collapse of dedovshchina as an initiation system has occurred at both the command level and at the conscript level.
Russian military abuses its soldiers pretty horribly even in peace time. Some fucked up people there I’m guessing. Not an excuse but context.
One reference (among others): https://www.hrw.org/report/2004/10/19/wrongs-passage/inhuman-and-degrading-treatment-new-recruits-russian-armed-forces
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Throughout the first year of their military service, hundreds of thousands of new recruits in the Russian armed forces face grossly abusive treatment at the hands of more senior conscripts. Under a system called dedovshchina, or “rule of the grandfathers,” second-year conscripts force new recruits to live in a year-long state of pointless servitude, punish them violently for any infractions of official or informal rules, and abuse them gratuitously. Dozens of conscripts are killed every year as a result of these abuses, and thousands sustain serious-and often permanent-damage to their physical and mental health. Hundreds commit or attempt suicide and thousands run away from their units. This abuse takes place in a broader context of denial of conscripts’ rights to adequate food and access to medical care, which causes many to go hungry or develop serious health problems, and abusive treatment by officers.
This report, which documents these abuses, is based on three years of research that have allowed Human Rights Watch to analyze the dedovshchina system, its consequences for the physical and mental well-being of conscripts, and the extent to which treatment under dedovshchina is inconsistent with Russian and international human rights standards. During 2002 and 2003, we conducted research in seven regions across Russia, including Cheliabinsk, Moscow, Novokuznetsk, Novosibirsk, St. Petersburg, Vladivostok, and Volgograd. We interviewed more than one hundred conscripts, their parents, officials, lawyers, NGO experts, and former military servicemen. The conscripts served on more than fifty bases in more than twenty-five of Russia’s eighty-nine provinces. We also extensively studied the archive files of several soldiers’ rights groups. In February 2004, we had a meeting to discuss our findings with officials of the Ministry of Defense in Moscow.
Dedovshchina exists in military units throughout the Russian Federation. It establishes an informal hierarchy of conscripts, based on the length of their service, and a corresponding set of rights and duties for each group of the hierarchy. As in militaries around the world, newcomers have essentially no rights under the system-they must earn them over time. At the beginning of their service, conscripts are “not eligible” to eat, wash, relax, sleep, be sick, or even keep track of time. Thus, any restrictions placed on these functions are considered permissible. The life of a new recruit consists of countless obligations to do the bidding of those conscripts who have served long enough-a year or more-to have earned rights in the informal hierarchy. Second-year conscripts, called the dedy[1],have practically unlimited power with respect to their junior colleagues. They can order them to do whatever they like, no matter how demeaning or absurd the task, while remaining beyond the strictures of the Military Code of Conduct or any other set of formal rules. If a first-year conscript refuses to oblige or fails in the assigned task, the senior conscript is free to administer whatever punishment he deems appropriate, no matter how violent.
Dedovshchina is distinguished by predation, violence, and impunity. During their first year of service, conscripts live under the constant threat of violence for failing to comply with limitless orders and demands of dedy. Many conscripts spent entire days fulfilling these orders, which range from the trivial, like shining the seniors’ boots or making their beds, to the predatory, such as handing over food items to them at meal time, or procuring (legally or illegally) money, alcohol or cigarettes for them. First-year conscripts face violent punishment for any failure-and frequently not only for their own individual failure, as punishment is often collective-to conform to the expectations of dedy. As a rule, punishment happens at night after officers have gone home. Dedy wake the first-year conscripts up in the middle of the night and make them perform push-ups or knee bends, often accompanied by beatings, until they drop. First-year conscripts also routinely face gratuitous abuse, often involving severe beatings or sexual abuse, from drunken dedy at night. Dedy sometimes beat new recruits with stools or iron rods.
Dedovshchina has all the trappings of a classic initiation system; indeed, it likely emerged as one several decades ago. Such systems, which exist in many social institutions around the world, including schools, athletic clubs, and especially the armed forces of many countries, can play a legitimate role in military structures by enhancinggroup cohesion and esprit de corps. Initiation systems license the group to erase a certain degree of individuality in its members, and the possibility of abuse is inherent in that license.
While dedovshchina may once have served the purpose of initiation, it has in the past twenty years degenerated into a system in which second-year conscripts, once victims of abuse and deprivation themselves, enjoy untrammeled power to abuse their juniors without rule, restriction, or fear of punishment.The result is not enhanced esprit de corps but lawlessness and gross abuse of human rights.The collapse of dedovshchina as an initiation system has occurred at both the command level and at the conscript level.