Dear Log,
«About 350,000 men aged 18 to 27 are annually called up for two years' service, but, according to the defence ministry, 90.5% avoid or delay the draft. In wealthy Moscow the figure rises to 97%. Only the poor serve.[...]It was only then he confided that a fellow soldier who had served in Chechnya had started demanding money from him. It was not blackmail, just extortion, a routine way for soldiers to supplement their income.»
--"Young, patriotic and bullied to death": Systematic abuse of conscripts rife in Russian army
