TBILISI, Georgia – A Russian soldier now in Georgia said Friday he was not seized against his will but deserted because he could not stand his commanding officer's verbal abuse.
The Russian military has maintained Sgt. Alexander Glukhov was seized by Georgian spies in a propaganda plot.
But Glukhov told The Associated Press on Friday that he was so upset by the "horrible" conditions at his post that he left.
His account of why he sought asylum in Georgia echoes countless reports of abuse and misery in the Russian military, which routed Georgian forces in a five-day war in August.
Glukhov, a 21-year-old draftee from a town 600 miles (950 kilometers) east of Moscow, told The Associated Press his battalion was deployed in South Ossetia last June, but he missed the fighting in August when the vehicle taking him to the front broke down.
In December, he said, the battalion was sent to Akhalgori, a district of South Ossetia that was mostly controlled by Georgia before the war but is now largely in the hands of separatists and Russian forces.
"The conditions there are horrible," Glukhov said. "It was particularly hard when the frost arrived. We lived in tents, the stove produced no heat, they fed us poorly."
Meanwhile, he said his commanding officer, a major, "drank all the time" and verbally abused soldiers.
"For some reason he took a dislike to me and was always cursing," said Glukhov. "Psychologically, I couldn't take it."
He said he left the camp in mid-January and took refuge first with an ethnic Georgian family and then with a 50-year-old man before crossing into Georgian-controlled territory Monday and asking police to take him to Tbilisi, the capital.
On Tuesday he appeared on Georgian television, describing the conditions he said prompted him to seek refuge in Georgia.
A Russian Defense Ministry official said Tuesday that a preliminary investigation indicated Glukhov had been abducted by Georgian intelligence agents and pressured physically or psychologically into making the statement, according to Russia's state-run RIA-Novosti news agency.
A duty officer at the Defense Ministry said late Friday he was not authorized to comment, and the ministry's spokesman could not be reached.
The dispute is characteristic of propaganda battles Russia and Georgia have fought before, during and after the war, with murky claims and counterclaims.
Georgian Interior Ministry officials ferried Glukhov to and from the interview Friday, but he said he lives among ethnic Georgian refugees from South Ossetia and is free to move as he pleases.
Glukhov, an amiable, moonfaced man, said he hopes his mother can come from Russia to see him soon, but he wants to stay in Georgia and is seeking political asylum.
"I feel very sorry for my comrades" back at the battalion, he said. "Even a soldier should live in normal conditions — after all, he is a human being, not livestock."
What MrBubbles thinks:
surprised there hasnt been more. i was aware of the poor shape of the russian military already. i remember seeing news reports during the war with drunk russian soldiers harassing and firing at reporters.
"I like my steaks how i like my women. Bloody and all over my face"
"Its like sex, but with a winner!"
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