NYT:
With Russian soldiers dying again in Chechnya, Galya A. is ready to do anything to keep her gangly 18-year-old son, Ruslan, from doing his compulsory two-year military service. So at a time when draftees are going to war just six months after they learn to fire a gun, what is a desperate mother to do?
"Divorce, my dear," said Ludmila Obraztsova, a volunteer for the Soldiers' Mothers Committee who conducts a weekly seminar on ways to dodge the draft legally, held oddly enough in a central Moscow veterans club. "You can live together with your husband, you do whatever you want together, but if you want to get your son out of the draft, your best chance is divorce." In that way, Mrs. Obraztsova said, Ruslan could legally argue that he was the only able-bodied person available to support his 63-year-old pensioned father, a certified invalid.
Many of the mothers who come to the sessions and take copious notes would come anyway, but the latest war, while popular as a move to keep Russia intact, has added urgency to their quest. "Who would want to give up their son to such a war?" said Tanya Knyazina, who came on behalf of her 19-year-old son. "As my son says himself, if it were a question of fighting for the motherland, of defending Moscow, he would gladly serve, but why should he go and fight, and die, for Chechnya?"
"People who can afford to pay bribes don't come to our Monday meetings," Mrs. Obraztsova said. "We counsel the middle class, the ones who can't pay."
For other young men, the solution could be, for instance, adoption. A single father of a child under 3 gets an automatic exemption, prompting some young couples to file for a divorce. The father can also get an exemption if the mother is under 18, or considered unfit to cope alone. Mrs. Obraztsova herself used one of these loopholes several years ago to get her younger son out of the draft.
Even in peacetime, even in the Soviet Union before the Afghan war, many families go and have gone to great lengths to keep their sons out an army notorious for its brutal treatment of conscripts. Deaths by beating, suicides and hazing occur regularly, and are the subject of periodic investigations and reports, but rarely of criminal prosecutions.
There are no reliable figures on Russian draft dodgers, but the Defense Ministry last spring claimed their number in 1998 had been halved, to 20,000 from 40,000.
Medical deferments provide an increasingly popular way out; according to recent statistics, more than 30 percent of draft-age men are excused for medical reasons. The high rate is usually explained by the deteriorating health of the male population generally, but it may also be due to efforts by people like Mrs. Obraztsova.
"Get your own checkup before your son is called up to the medical commission," she said at a recent seminar. "Please, please, remember, if he has any medical complaints, get them documented -- send him to as many clinics as you can.
"Remember you have a right not to agree with the draft board, but do not lose your temper, keep your voice quiet, just stick a copy of the law under their noses," she said.
"If they won't listen, don't bother with them, write out your complaint in a letter and mail it. But keep a copy. Little mothers, always, always, keep copies of all your documents.
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