Several months ago, three Ukrainian soldiers from a military unit stationed in Kharkiv Oblast allegedly murdered a fellow soldier and tortured and kidnapped seven others. They were drunk at the time, according to the regional military prosecutor, who said the suspects face life in prison if convicted.
While an extreme and rare case, alcohol abuse at the war front is common.
Drinking by men in fatigues has become such a problem that that the governors of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts are ringing alarm bells. Some, however, insist that the extent of the problem is exaggerated.
On April 8, Luhansk Oblast Governor Hennady Moskal banned the sale of alcoholic drinks to servicemen, just a few weeks after the same was done by Donetsk Oblast Governor Oleksandr Kikhtenko.
In March Moskal also claimed that three drunk fighters of the volunteer Aidar Battalion had broken into an apartment in Lysychansk and beaten the owner, and later allegedly shot rifles outdoors.
Mykola Grekov, an Aidar officer and an adviser to Moskal, said by phone that it was not clear if the people that the governor referred to belonged to the battalion because Aidar insignia could be easily bought by any person.
“We have full understanding with Gennady Moskal,” Grekov said, adding that Yevhen Ptashnyk, acting commander of Aidar, and the governor were expected to issue a joint statement on resolving their disagreements.
Alexander Rychkov, a freelance journalist working in Ukraine, said that one soldier had been expelled from the Aidar Battalion for alcoholism.
“Another Aidar soldier once got drunk and started hanging around the barracks with weapons,” he told the Kyiv Post. “Then other soldiers were trying to catch him.” Rychkov also says he has seen soldiers smoking marijuana.
Grekov dismissed the alcoholism accusations. “Today there is good discipline at the Aidar Battalion, and I, as a commanding officer, don’t know any cases of alcohol abuse that took place recently,” he said.
Another incident involving alcohol took place in mid-March, when an armored personnel vehicle driven by a drunk Ukrainian officer lost control on a road in the Donetsk Oblast city of Konstantynivka and hit several people, killing an 8-year old girl. The accident triggered riots in the city.
The Prosecutor General’s Office said on April 1 that a negligence case against the two servicemen who were inside the vehicle had been submitted to a court.
Cafes and pubs in another Donetsk Oblast city, Artemivsk, swiftly filled with soldiers who went on a binge in February after running the risk of death during the takeover of Debaltseve by Russian forces and their proxies. They drank so heavily that they frightened many locals, forcing cafe owners to put up signs that they don’t sell alcoholic drinks to soldiers.
An officer who served in the Debaltseve area in Donetsk Oblast in January-March has also witnessed some violent, alcohol-fueled incidents. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press.
“Once an officer shot at soldiers through a closed door, and the soldiers kicked the shit out of him,” he told the Kyiv Post. In Artemivsk, there was a soldier who died in a hotel after going on a five-day binge, the officer added.
While most soldiers drink moderately, some drink more because of the war, he said.
Drug addiction is also a problem. “During training, there was a bong in every toilet on every floor in the barracks,” the officer said.
Military authorities are taking measures to crack down on alcohol abuse, Anatoly Stelmakh, a military spokesman, said by phone. Special officers in charge of morale and military prosecutors are working on that, he added.
“If we identify such cases, we fire people and, if there is a crime, we start a criminal investigation,” he said. “I think this problem exists but it can easily be localized, and it’s not a big problem for combat readiness.”
Among Russian soldiers and Kremlin-backed separatists, alcohol abuse is also a problem.
Nightclubs in downtown Donetsk are rife with drunk fighters, Stefan Huijboom, a Dutch reporter working in Ukraine, told the Kyiv Post.
“In these clubs they are totally wasted,” he said. “I have the impression that they might also be on drugs.”
The use of intoxicating substances by soldiers can be easily explained psychologically.
Olga Pavlova, a psychologist, said that she knew a commander who had allowed his soldiers to drink alcohol after a battle in which many people were killed. “If they hadn’t drunk, they would have gone crazy,” she said.
A similar situation occurs when servicemen are on leave. “When they are on leave, they start relaxing,” Pavlova said. “They need some psychological relaxation, they don’t know how to do that in some other way.”
She said, however, that overall discipline is quite strong based on her talks with servicemen.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov can be reached at [email protected]
