Russian Army Beating Hurts Ivanov in Contest to Succeed Putin

[shugah]

Russian Army Beating Hurts Ivanov in Contest to Succeed Putin

March 14 (Bloomberg) -- Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov's chances of succeeding Vladimir Putin as president in 2008 may have been damaged by an incident in which an army conscript had to have his legs amputated after a beating by fellow soldiers.

Ivanov, 53, was a leading candidate for the presidency before the hazing episode, said Marshall Goldman, a director of Harvard University's Davis Russian Studies Center. Ivanov comes from St. Petersburg, like Putin, and went to the same university as the president.

Putin ordered an investigation into the Dec. 31 beating of the soldier, Andrei Sychyov, who has undergone five operations, including one to reconstruct his genitals, and is still hospitalized. The president told the army on Feb. 27 to improve discipline, a move that further undermines Ivanov, Goldman and other analysts say.

``The case is getting lots of attention in Russia and he's coming under more and more pressure,'' said Goldman in a telephone interview from Cambridge, Massachusetts. ``It would be the wrong kind of signal to make him president now.''

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000085&sid=a27.59iWSN_o&refer=europe

[AlamoDemoc]

1. Speaking of Russian politics...I think Sergei Lavrov who is now

the Russian Foreign Minister seem to me as charismatic and far better politician than Sergei Ivanov.

[mom cat]

2. "Hazing episode"? ... WTF?

[formercia]

3. Quite common in the Russian Army

Hundreds of conscripts die each year from hazing incidents. Suicides run in the thousands. Not a place to be if you're a draftee.

[mom cat]

4. I had no idea. That is gruesome.