MOSCOW, February 3 (Itar-Tass) —— The number of young people who dodge the military service is on the decline in Russia.
The number of wanted military draft dodgers amounted to 3,900 people in the beginning of this year, the press service of the main military investigation department of the Russian Investigation Committee told Itar-Tass on Friday. “This is 27% less than the number reported at the beginning of 2011,” the press service said.
This tendency continues for a couple of years, the press service said. For instance, the number of draft dodgers already went down by 16% in 2010.
Some 2,375 draft dodgers were found in 2011. “About every third draft dodger was found in the Southern Military District, every fourth – in the Central Military District, every seventh – in the Eastern Military District, every eighth – in the Western Military District,” the press service reported.
Meanwhile, the press service reported that about two thirds of the draft dodgers went to the law enforcement agencies voluntarily. All this resulted from the joint work of military detectives and prosecutors, policemen, the command of military units, human rights organizations for informing people about some opportunities and conditions of a voluntary surrender, conditions to relieve military draft dodgers from criminal responsibility.
“We are taking major efforts in searching for those, who are hiding from the preliminary investigation for a long period of time. Thanks to this fact, for instance, a sailor Sergiyenko, who was wanted for 15 years, was found last year,” the press service said, adding that “Sergiyenko serves a sentence for another crime in Uzbekistan.”