ST. PETERSBURG. April 28 (Interfax-AVN) - In 2005 military commissariats of the Leningrad Military District have received only six applications from conscripts wishing to undergo the alternative civil service, Colonel Fedor Saraev, acting chief of the conscription and military service preparations department of the Leningrad Military District Headquarters Mobilization Directorate, told Interfax-Military News Agency on Thursday.
"Last year military commissariats received 124 such applications," he noted.
"Draft boards decided to send 64 conscripts to undergo the alternative civil service, but only 21 of them were sent, since the rest of them were either granted postponements for various reasons, or exemptions for health reasons," he noted.
"There is no ground to say that the number of draftees, wishing to undergo alternative civil service, has increased this year," he pointed out.