For four months, there was no contact with ACF employee Ruslan Shaveddinov, who was abducted and taken away for “service” to Novaya Zemlya (a remote Russian Arctic archipelago).
Neither we, nor Ruslan’s relatives, nor his mother knew anything at all about him.
The only general information we had was this: he had been taken deep into the archipelago. No communication. No roads leading there.
We filed lawsuit after lawsuit in Ruslan’s defense, demanding the most basic respect for his rights.
For several months, we demanded that Shaveddinov be brought to court. The excuse was always that the weather was “not fit for flying.”
Well, at last, we managed to get him brought in. We had to fight our way into the courtroom. And of course, there was the obligatory small, spiteful act of malice so typical of our state. In the end, everyone was allowed in except Ruslan’s girlfriend and ACF press secretary Kira Yarmysh. She has exactly the same power of attorney to represent the administrative claimant’s interests as I do, but no. They would not even let her into the courthouse. She is sitting at the security desk now.
In court, we learned that Ruslan is living in a barrel. The barrel is 200 km (124 miles) from the nearest settlement. There is a nuclear test site nearby. Five men guarding a helicopter pad amid snow and bears fetch water for themselves from the river or drink melted snow. Once every month and a half, a helicopter brings them a sack of flour.
The order appointing Ruslan as the diesel operator at a radio-technical post was personally issued, no less, by a major general, the deputy commander of the army.
I asked Ruslan a few questions about his life:
The hearing is continuing. We are waiting to be told that living in a barrel without communication or drinking water is perfectly normal. That, apparently, is what the greatness of the Russian Army consists of.