16 Russian soldiers killed in 2003 due to bullying of senior officers

16 Russian soldiers have been killed due to the bullying of senior officers in 2003 and a further 2,500 have received some form of injury. As a Rosbalt correspondent reports, this was announced yesterday by Military Attorney General Alexander Savenkov. He said this figure is almost a third higher than last year.

He said there have already been over 300 cases of army brutality that have come to court and he added that 167 Russian officers have been sentenced in 2003 by the military tribunal.

According to Mr Savenkov, one reason for the growing number of such crimes is due to the poor level of officer training. Moreover, he is convinced that the method of temporary isolation should be reinstated to deal with this problem. However, the attorney stressed that such a punishment must be under the jurisdiction of the military court.

On the other hand, Mr Savenkov said that the overall number of crimes committed by soldiers in 2003 has dropped by 2.5 times.