MOSCOW. March 30 (Interfax-AVN) - The General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces will arrange the fall draft with due regard to faults committed in the past, Colonel General Vasily Smirnov, chief of the General Staff Mobilization Directorate, said on Tuesday.
"We have taken into account mistakes and drawbacks of previous drafts, we are planning establishment of special posts at each airfield where airlifted personnel will be stationed for rest and will receive hot food, if necessary," Smirnov told reporters.
A military transport plane delivered 111 servicemen from Moscow to Magadan in late December 2003. The personnel had just been recruited for service with border guard units. Ninety-two of them asked for medical treatment for hypothermia right after the airlift, and one of them died in hospital.
Smirnov said that the General Staff has launched an experiment under which raw recruits get outfit right at the assembly points. "The reason is that raw recruits show up for departure to military units without clothes fitting the weather, thus exposing themselves to colds en route," he noted.