THE RIGHT TO ADEQUATE FOOD

One of the main responsibilities of commanders in enhancing the conditions of service is to ensure timely and full provision of the prescribed norms of nutrition to every serviceman. [21]

For the first month of his military service, Vasilii S.'s typical meal consisted of water-based millet porridge with fish, mashed potato, some bread, butter, and a cup of steaming tea.[22] In the three meals per day he got, there was no meat, vegetables, or eggs, all required by internal military regulations. Frequently, the eighteen-year-old and his fellow conscripts were forced to gulp the hot food and tea down in a matter of minutes. That was all the time senior conscripts gave them to eat, leaving them the choice between "swallowing boiling food" and "collapsing under the severe physical strain [of military service]." Often, senior conscripts also confiscated the butter. The food itself was of inferior quality, as Vasilii S. soon discovered. The mashed potato was made of expired, and sometimes moldy, instant potato mix and water. Vasilii S. avoided it whenever he could because it gave him heartburn. One day, when he had kitchen duty, Vasilii S. was asked to prepare the fish for the porridge. As he cut up the pike and catfish, he discovered that they were worm-infested. He stopped eating the fish after that but could not bring himself to tell his fellow soldiers.

Vasilii S.'s diet clearly fell short of the Russian military's internal regulations that prescribe a detailed daily diet for soldiers, but his experience was not exceptional.[23] In 2002, Human Rights Watch interviewed thirty-one conscripts from military bases across Russia about their diet in military service. Nineteen of the young men told Human Rights Watch that they were badly fed throughout their first year of military service. Repeated claims by these and other conscripts of weight loss during military service appeared to confirm that the meals these men received were nutritionally insufficient. Ten conscripts, who all served on more than one military base, said they had mixed experiences. Only three young men said they had been fed well throughout their military service. Interviews with experts at conscripts' rights organizations in regions across Russia, and extensive research in their case records strongly suggest that malnourishment is a problem at military bases throughout the country, and has been for years. The diet generally described does not appear to meet nutritional standards and the food is often inferior or pest-infested. Worse still, younger conscripts often have too little time to consume their meal as senior conscripts impose rules on first-year conscripts that force them to practically inhale their (sometimes hot) food or leave half their meals behind.  Senior conscripts also frequently compel first-year recruits to hand over choice food items to them.

Two retired military officials identified corruption as another reason why the quantity and quality of food items that reach the conscripts' plate do not meet the official standard. They said corrupt officers at warehouses and kitchens sell off food products for their own profit, sometimes replacing the food items with inferior products. According to a retired colonel, now the head of the St. Petersburg-based NGO For Military Reform, large quantities of food are lost in the regiments. He said officers in charge of regimental warehouses, the heads of the canteens, and the cooks, routinely steal food to sell it on the market or for their own consumption.[24] A former military procurator confirmed the existence of these corrupt processes and said that "everyone is complicit" (in Russian: Ruka ruku moet) making the official mechanism to check the quality and quantity of the food conscripts get an empty formality.[25] In a letter to Human Rights Watch, the Russian Ministry of Defense stated that it exercises "strict control" over all levels of the provisions service. It stated that, as a result, "individual facts of losses and failure to deliver material funds are uncovered, which are the result of ill-faith of individual officials to their official duties."[26]

For most conscripts, the lack of adequate food results in hunger; in the words of one conscript we interviewed, "a feeling of hunger haunted us all the time."[27] Undoubtedly, inadequate food intake among many conscripts also makes them more susceptible to illnesses, including nutritional deficiency disorders. In some cases, complications related to malnourishment led to the premature death of conscripts.

Official Standards

Russian official standards are consistent with the government's international obligation to provide adequate food to conscripts. A Ministry of Defense order on rations and the Military Code of Conduct (in Russian: Ustav vnutrennei sluzhby vooruzhennykh sil Rossiiskoi Federatsii) provide a detailed legal framework for the diet of soldiers. The order, which is legally binding, establishes standard daily rations for all troops, including conscripts.[28] It contains a list of foods that conscripts should receive every day, and specifies required amounts per product in grams. These include, among others, white and dark bread, cereals, pasta, meat, fish, milk, butter, sugar, and vegetables (see Graph 1 for the full general ration). This official diet appears to be close to international dietary recommendations and to national recommendations in, for example, the United States, with respect to energy and protein content. It is not possible, however, to evaluate the dietary recommendations completely without more information about the content of the recommended daily vitamin supplement and about the assumptions behind the recommendations on the quality of the grains and meat for which specific quantities are suggested.[29]

The Military Code of Conduct, which regulates the rights and obligations of soldiers, stipulates that conscripts are entitled to three warm meals per day.[30] It encourages variety in the diet and states that when officers determine the menu they should take into consideration not only the type of combat preparation the troops are engaged in and availability of food supplies but also the wishes of the troops themselves.[31] The Code further states that, before every meal, officers must check the quality of the food, the quantity of individual portions, and sanitary conditions in the canteen and kitchen.[32]

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights requires governments to "progressively achieve the full realization of the right to adequate food." The U.N. Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights has indicated that diets should include "a mix of nutrients for physical and mental growth, development and maintenance, and physical activity that are in compliance with human physiological needs at all stages throughout the life cycle and according to gender and occupation."[33]

While the Military Code of Conduct does not reference the ICESCR, its nutritional standard should be seen as interpretive of the standards contained in the ICESCR. The government is therefore obliged, from the perspective of international law, to take all reasonable steps to ensure observance of these standards. Digression from the standard without well-founded reasons thus constitutes a violation of the right to adequate food. Human Rights Watch also believes that regular digressions from the official standard risk rendering the diet insufficient in calories, protein, and other nutrients as Russia's nutritional standard appears adequate but by no means generous. This is particularly true considering the level of physical activity that can be expected from conscripts in the armed forces and the physiological needs of the age group most conscripts belong to.

Actual Diet

The actual diet of conscripts generally falls well short of these detailed rules. Conscripts generally described a persistent lack of meat and vegetables, poor quality of the food served to them, and a steady, monotonous diet of macaroni or potato and cabbage. They also said officers generally reduce the official procedure to check the food's quality and quantity to a pointless formality, when they observed it at all.

Several conscripts told Human Rights Watch that meals were not checked for quality and quantity in their units at all, others said the procedure was performed regularly but was reduced to a formality. Anton S. told Human Rights Watch: "They would serve one plate with everything we were supposed to get, and put it on display. However, the plates we got looked nothing like it."[34]

Missing Foods

Foods most frequently missing from conscripts' diets were meat, eggs, green vegetables (except cabbage), and sometimes fish. Many conscripts complained about a lack of sugar, although it was unclear whether the quantities of sugar they received in their tea matched the official norm. The fact that certain food items are routinely absent from conscripts' diet risks rendering it insufficient in nutritional value. Conscripts also frequently described their diet as monotonous, saying they received almost the exact same diet every day. This contravenes the spirit of the official standard, which prescribes and encourages variety, and the international standard as interpreted by the U.N. Committee on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights.[35] For example, Dmitrii Kosov said he and his fellow conscripts mainly ate macaroni: "Macaroni with macaroni, macaroni with bread, macaroni in the soup... They apparently had a lot of it."[36] Many other conscripts said they constantly ate potatos and never saw any pasta. Another conscript said: "They fed us cabbage, cabbage and more cabbage…"[37]

Concerns about Quality and Hygiene

Many conscripts complained that the quality of the food they received was poor, or about apparently unsanitary conditions in kitchens or canteens.[38] These complaints primarily concerned the following issues:[39]

·Insects and other pests in food. A number of conscripts complained of worms, larvae, ants, and other insects in their soup, bread, meat, fish, and porridge. For example, Alexander Kaiankin said: "The bread was of low quality. If you'd cut it open, ants would sometimes crawl around inside."[40] Another conscript said, "we had worms in our porridge… Once I found a cockroach in my compote."[41] Yet another mentioned "white worms" in his porridge.[42]

·Spoiled foods. Several conscripts were fed spoiled foods, including bread, potatoes, fish, meat, and eggs. One said: "I peeled potatoes when I had kitchen duty. They were all squashy…"[43] Another conscript said he received mashed potato made of expired potato mix: "It was old. On the labels on the bags you could see they were expired, maybe by six months. Some of it had already gone bad."[44] Ilia B. said that he and his peers were frequently given rotten fish for lunch: "[We could tell that the fish was bad] both by smell and color. Nobody ate it, except for the pigs."[45]

·Lack of hygiene. Many conscripts reported unsanitary conditions in kitchens or canteens at their bases. Several said they had found cockroaches in their food or drinks. One conscript said the salted pork rind (in Russian: salo) he and his fellow soldiers received was regularly full of hair.[46] Another said he regularly found sand in his soup.[47]

·Low quality meat. The conscripts who did receive meat in their diet often complained that the meat was in fact fat or mostly gristle, and was inedible. Vladimir Z. told Human Rights Watch: "[It's the kind of] meat that when you can pull it out of your mouth and let go of it, it snaps back. It's impossible to chew it."[48] Several other conscripts said they were given meat from the strategic reserves[49] that had been frozen for several decades.[50] In the words of one of them, "the meat was older than I am."[51] Many conscripts also said they received tinned stewed meat, or tushenka-widely recognized as inferior to meat but not necessarily so in nutritional value. A retired colonel told Human Rights Watch that substituting tushenka for fresh meat to fulfill the military's dietary requirements for meat is a widespread and "old army specialty."[52] The retired colonel also confirmed that officers frequently take meat out of the strategic reserve when they do not have fresh meat in their warehouses.

Hazing and the Right to Food

Hazing prevents conscripts from receiving a diet that meets official standards and causes conscripts to go hungry. In canteens in military units across Russia, senior conscripts routinely take food from junior conscripts or severely restrict the amount of time for eating. Officers are not present during mealtimes to maintain order in canteens.[53]

Too Little Time to Eat

Informally, senior conscripts have the authority to determine when meals are over; when they finish, they order everyone else to stop eating as well. Almost half the conscripts interviewed for this report complained that for part or all of their military service senior conscripts routinely gave them so little time to eat-by most descriptions between one-and-a-half and five minutes-that they were forced to either practically inhale their food or leave half of it uneaten. Senior conscripts physically abuse or humiliate junior conscripts who take uneaten food with them.  In some cases, senior conscripts were served first and started eating while first-year conscripts were waiting to get their food. In other cases, senior soldiers skipped soup and went straight to seconds.[54] In both scenarios, the senior soldiers ordered everyone to stop eating as soon as they were done. Training conscripts to consume food quickly may be a legitimate element of field training. But this was clearly not the purpose in the numerous cases examined by Human Rights Watch.

Senior conscripts generally enter the canteen and are served first while junior conscripts wait for their food. Vladimir P. told Human Rights Watch:

The dedy started eating first. As soon as the dedy finish eating they go out and make us get up. They don't care if you finished eating or not. There were times when the last person to sit down had just filled his plate and had about half a minute left… There were times when we remained hungry.[55]

Describing another scenario, a conscript told Human Rights Watch: "The dedy don't eat soup, only second course, and we would eat soup and then time was up. During lunch, we didn't have enough time to eat the second course."[56] In Maksim Komlev's words, "when they only took the second course, they quickly ate it and said: 'Company, lunch is over!'"

While some said they learned to eat quickly, others said no matter how hard they tried, they were unable to finish their meals. For example, Ilia B. described the scene in his canteen:

They gave us (ten junior conscripts) 1.5 minutes to eat our first and second course. Nobody ate the soup because it was too hot. We immediately ate the seconds. As we entered the canteen, a sergeant stood by the entrance and looked at his stopwatch and yelled: "Your minute has ended! Carry out the plates."[57]

Conscripts said that they were sometimes tempted to put bread or other food in their pockets after senior soldiers had declared mealtime over. One said that a "feeling of hunger was there all the time, twenty-four hours a day…. There were problems because of it. People took bread with them, although you're not supposed to."[58] Those who were caught carrying food out of the canteen faced disciplinary punishment. One conscript recounted:

You sometimes could not finish your food. And if you take something with you, [ you're in trouble]. Once, they caught one of us, he had a piece of bread in his pocket. They smeared a thick layer of toothpaste on the bread and forced him to eat it. He didn't brush his teeth for the next two months, couldn't bear the sight of it, but he finished the piece. What else could he do?[59]

Another conscript said that when someone in his unit was caught bringing bread out of the canteen, senior soldiers brought a lot of bread to the barracks that evening: "They said: 'Now you're going to eat.' So you eat one, two, three loaves, until you feel really awful."[60]

Confiscating Food

Every fourth conscript interviewed about their diet in the military stated that senior soldiers had confiscated their food during mealtime, mostly white bread, butter, and meat.  Aleksei Dryganov told Human Rights Watch:

We gave our tea to the senior conscripts, as well as our bread and butter, leaving us only 100 grams of potato and a piece of black bread. In the evening, the same story. The meat was taken right away. You wouldn't even get to the table before they take it from you.[61]

Another conscript said:  "They gave us buns and [the dedy] took them away from someone. If a ded felt like having a second bun, he'd just walk up and take it. Nobody would tell him anything."[62] In some units senior conscripts systematically confiscated food, in others the practice was less common. One conscript said: "The dedy sometimes took the butter. If you managed to put it on your bread they left it to you but if you weren't quick enough you'd say goodbye to your butter."[63] Another said: "They only took our butter, sometimes also an egg. They would give us two, one they took. But that was rare."[64]

Two conscripts who fled the same unit together said in separate interviews that the senior soldiers forced them to save their pieces of white bread and hand them over later. They described the punishment that was imposed if a conscript ate the bread himself:

Sometimes when you are hungry, you eat the piece of white bread, which you're supposed to give away. And you pay for that. If you don't bring it, they say: "Go to the drying room." And there you get [beaten]. Several guys went to hospital because of it."[65]

The other conscript expanded: "God forbid that anyone sees you eat a piece of white bread. They wake you up at night, and they make you do knee bends and pushups, and you get beaten over the head with a stool, or an iron rod."[66]

The Government's Response

Poor nutrition and arbitrary denial of food has plagued first-year conscripts for years. Yet, the Russian government does not acknowledge these problems and has apparently not taken any steps to address them. In response to repeated requests from Human Rights Watch for a meeting to discuss these issues, Deputy Minister of Defense V. Isakov sent a three-page letter to Human Rights Watch denying the existence of both problems. In his letter, the deputy minister describes the control procedures provided for in the Military Code of Conduct and states that "with such functional control over the provision of food in military units, such a problem as senior conscripts confiscating food from junior conscripts does not exist." In an apparent denial of the practice of senior conscripts limiting the eating time of junior ones, the deputy minister stated that "the eating time in each military unit is determined by its commander." The deputy minister also apologized for the "impossibility to have a meeting in the near future."[67]