Sultan Umarov: "The first military draft in 20 years in Chechnya"

The first draft in Chechnya has taken place in more than 20 years. Recently, the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu agreed to send conscripts from Chechnya to serve in the Russian Armed Forces in 2014. The first draft will affect 500 people. The number of recruits from Chechnya will grow with time. The deputy military commissar of Chechnya, Sultan Umarov, talks to VK on the eve of the departure of the first recruits from Chechnya.

- Sultan Hasovich how was the long-awaited recruitment to compulsory military service?

- In accordance with the federal Law on Military Duty and Military Service we continue to carry out activities related to the draft, now is the so-called preparatory period. We are summoning guys to investigate their health status, marital status, education and we are preparing documents. We place emphasis on people with higher education or college degrees, as well as specialties related to the military. We have a lot of volunteers, more than we expected to find. As for army branches, the guys don't know much about the army, they are not very selective, and the most important thing for them is to get drafted and serve in the army.

- How healthy are Chechen boys?

- Compared with Soviet times, we have many sick people, since we've had two wars. There are guys who were born during the war, in basements under kerosene lamps. But we have sufficient resources for the draft, we have healthy, educated and physically-developed people.

- Are there specialists in Chechnya who can tell young men about the army?

- We've conducted a lot of meetings with parents, explained to them how and where their sons will serve. We are working on the issue of providing republican assistance with potential conflicts in the army. We are planning to send deputies, representatives of the Council of Elders and of the Committee of Soldiers' Fathers to the places of service. We have a man who served in the rank of warrant officer, there are people who served as paratroopers, who have performed more than a hundred parachute jumps. We have pilot officers, people who have served in the missile and tank troops. These people were in the good army of former years, when every man knew the task set before him and could do it.

- Army service has always been honoured in the Caucasus. What does the army mean for Chechens?

- We haven't had a draft for a long time. Sometimes, some people ended up in local infantry units, but it never applied to the whole of Russia. In Soviet times Chechens always wanted to serve, they were even sending reports to be sent to Afghanistan. My brothers, older and younger ones, our fathers served in the army. The army is a school of courage, of becoming a man. Young men learn about new nationalities, they learn the geography of Russia. The army helps a person to find his way in life.

- Were there any inter-ethnic problems when you served in the army?

- I served in the navy in Balaklava as a commander of the department of ZAS telephone operators from 1983-85. Trainings took place in the town of Nikolaev. As a ZAS telephonist, I maintained contact with the navy headquarters. We had a well-established operation, there were radio operators and telegraph operators, there was a group of engineers who serviced equipment. There were Ukrainians, Belarusans, Latvians, Lithuanians, representatives of Central Asian peoples and Bashkirs serving with us. We lived as one family, we still keep in touch. We later became scattered all over Russia, but I'm still in touch with our former chief of staff, second-rank Captain Nikolai Ivanovich, with colleagues from the Moscow region and from Crimea.