Russian deserter found after hiding in forest for over 10 years
 

Moscow (AFP) - Police have apprehended an army deserter who hid in a forest in eastern Russia for more than a decade and kept his whereabouts secret from even his family, regional authorities said Monday.

The 30-year-old man, whose identity was not made public, was drafted into the military in 2003 and was stationed in the remote Kamchatka peninsula for one year before fleeing the army's ranks, police said.

"He lived in Kamchatka all this time, mainly hiding in the forest," the regional branch of the interior ministry said in a statement. "He got by with odd jobs and did not attempt to get in touch with his family."

The search for the deserter, who hails from the southern Russian city of Taganrog, was stopped when his family erroneously identified a dead body as that of their missing relative a few months after his disappearance, the statement said.

TASS news agency reported that the deserter's family had even buried who they thought was their missing relative.

The soldier would have deserted because of "family problems," TASS quoted regional authorities as saying.

The deserter reportedly had built himself a home out of old construction materials on the outskirts of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, and made a living by working on a private pig farm and collecting scrap, among other odd jobs.

Soldiers found guilty of desertion can face up to seven years in prison under Russian law. In 2003, mandatory military service lasted two years, a duration which has since been reduced to a year.

Valentina Melnikova, the head of Russia's Committee of Soldiers' Mothers, told AFP she doubted the soldier would receive prison time for his offence.

"There were lots of deserters in those days in the Far East. We've had cases when some would hide in a basement for years, but they would go through a psychiatric examination and would be set free," she said.

The Chief Military Prosecutor's office did not reply to a request for comment.

Russian deserter found after hiding in forest for over 10 years - Yahoo News

Thanks keep us posted

fucking Mowgli

Their army must be the sucks for him to do that.

lol.....

:1orglaugh

When I was in the military it was very common for people who had been AWOL for decades to come back in. They just walked away from the military and lived as a civilian, and went about their life. They get pulled over for some routine traffic violation and get arrested and sent back. Suddenly you have a forty-five year old private who has a house, wife and kids, and a job and is suddenly a private in uniform for a few weeks while the paperwork goes through.

I remember one of them clearly... A man named Topin. He was older, fifty-five or so, tall skinny black guy, walked with a cane. A lcpl decided to mess with him, short little tough Italian kid from Brooklyn. Topin warned him to knock it off and that he would "kick his ass" and we all laughed. Much to our surprise... He put his cane up against one of the racks (we called our beds "racks"), squared off with this Marine half his age... Jumped up, touched the ceiling, spun around, kicked him in the jaw and laid him out cold. Broke his jaw and all. You never know who you are messing with.

Is that him.

45 year old privates and even 55... Wow. Here in Russia you can be drafted into the army at age of 18-27 only. If you are under 18 or over 27 you can't be drafted as a soldier. Russian army is amateur (the soldiers here don't get paid for their duty).

Every healthy man in Russia must do a mandatory military service for 1 (one) year as a soldier. The one can get a military rank up to a sergeant during that time (sergeants are not officers in Russia - they are just soldiers). Alternatively you can get a higher education with a special military course (5 years). After that you'll get a military rank of LT (you'll be an officer). All officers here are professionals and they are getting paid for their military service.

When a soldier gets demobilized after a year in army, he keeps his military rank for a lifetime and can be mobilized in case of war. The other way to stay in army is to get a job as a contractor. E.g. if you feel you trained enough, you can try to became a Spetsnaz solder. Those are professionals too - they get paid and military service is the only their job. To become a one of them, you have to pass through some extremely hard and very brutal test (you will run for about 30 kilometers or so in full ammunition, will do shooting, you will be beaten by professional fighters for 12 minutes and you can't let them to knock you out etc..) That's very serious and some even die during that test. But those who succeed will join the 30,000 (according to the Western information) professional elite of Russian army.

So almost every man here has a military rank and is considered as a soldier/officer in reserve. In fact, Russia is a very militarized country. Almost as militarized as Israel. The only difference is that women here can not be drafted into the army (in Israel even a women have to serve in army).

BTW, the most effective in all war conflicts forces in Russia are VDV (Russian airborne). According to the Western sources, Russia has about 72,000 of VDV soldiers. Those are rapid reaction forces that have to thrown into the enemy territory in the shortest time in case of a military conflict. They were effectively used in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Kosovo and Georgian war of 2008. Will be interesting to compare the training level of Russian amateur VDV soldiers (1 year of mandatory military service) with the professional US Marines.

Rochard, if you have 10 minutes, please watch the video below. This is a demonstrative show of VDV skills for civilians (for fun of beholders). It's some kind of circus, of course. All fights are staged, but still, you can see their condition, because the asphalt is real, their knives are real, the bricks and boards they break are real too ;) It will be interesting to hear your opinion. Have you been trained somehow like this, or it was different?



Yes, those guys just love to do public shows like that :) I would underline it again: the guys on the video above are amateurs (regular forces) and they have nothing to do with professional soldiers that get a special training. The professional Spetsnaz don't reveal their training process (it's kept in secret) and they are even hiding their faces. However sometime they do an exception for the journalists, and this is one of their advanced drills (just for a comparison with amateur soldiers from the video above):

When the deserters were caught years later they were recognized at the rank they deserted as.


.

In Russia those will be sent to a prison in will lose their rank, because criminals don't serve in army here. On the other hand, if a deserter will be "caught" say after 10 years, he can't be prosecuted because the statute of limitations for his crime will be expired.

2 Rochard, since you are a former marine, here is demonstrative show of Russian marines. This is the same sort of circus show as VDV did on the video above. The only difference is that those are marines (also non-professional amateur soldiers), not airborne:



Note that all bottles they break by a head are also real beer bottles, not like those fake ones made of sugar that used in action movies. Breaking of a bottle is an important part of training. It teaches soldiers to tolerate pain and overcome fear.

P.S. Maybe those guys are not as cool as VDV, but they are also quite effective. When Somalia pirates have captured Russian tanker in 2010, the black berets (marines) have stormed it, saved the crew are killed all pirates (no one has returned back to his home). The marines had no loses in that operation. Was it brutal? Yes of course, but those were pirates who kill people for fun, and it would be a very stupid idea to just let them go.

thanks for the update

I wouldn't call that "training". That is more of a "choreographed performance act". Kind of silly really.

No, no, no. It's not about tactical training of course (now way!) It's only about physical and psychological training. For example, as I told above, breaking a bottle with a head has a very simple concept - it's a psychological training. Thus I asked if you have been doing those as well or not? I'm just curious.

The tactical training (parachuting, team working, shooting, using of various weapons, driving of armored vehicles etc) is a very different thing. I don't ask you about those skills here - they are assumed by default. The things like that:



That's a must for paratroopers of every country. I know the US airborne have the same training - so no questions about it.

lol 10 years in the forest to avoid a 1-2 year jail term that would have actually been no prison time at all.

Well done sir.

Yep, that's absolutely correct. Here in Russia the one gets up to 3 years in the prison camp. I do believe that 10 years in the forest is not even close comparable with that. That deserter guy is a true idiot.

A guy hides 10 years in forest because of "Family Problems", i hope this moron have no kid(s).

The video you showed me had men dancing around like retards. We never did silly stuff like that.

Tactical training... was constant. Never did parachuting, but we were constantly in training.

This is a circus they show for kids to make them interested in a military service. It's staged of course. But here is my question again: has the US marine to break beer bottles by his head and bricks by his arm? That was a simple question. Please answer. I just want to compare the approaches of pain tolerance training in our countries. I believe you understand me. When a soldier catches a bullet and still can stand at his legs, he has to be able to shoot back even if he's bleeding and suffer a pain.

Strange, Russian marines doing the parachuting training just as airborne. As about the tactical training, so it's a must. No questions here.

This is choreographed dancing. It's very cute.

As I said above, that's a staged perforance. However, you haven't answered to my question :)

P.S. A former soldier in the USA is a veteran, while in Russian hi is nothing (just a guy who's been to army and has a military rank for a case of war). Only those who were at real war are considered as veterans here.

To answer your question directly... To the best of my knowledge, no, Marines do not intentionally break beer bottles over their heads to see how well they react to pain. This is what bar fights are for.

Wait...Rochard was in the marines?

Hazing in Russian Army - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedovshchina

So, theKing got caught - It had to happen eventually...

:thumbsup :1orglaugh