MOSCOW – Russian interior ministry troops were fed dog food earlier this year to save money, according to a former officer in the ministry.
A rare whistleblower in Russia’s expansive security forces, former major Igor Matveyev said officers tried to cover up the scandal and other alleged wrongdoing at the interior ministry troops base where he served in the far east city of Vladivostok.
Mr Matveyev, who served in Russia’s wars against Chechen separatists in the 1990s, said his dismissal was ordered after he posted a video on the internet this month alleging widespread corruption in the interior ministry forces.
No one at the ministry’s troop unit was immediately available to comment on his allegations.
“It’s embarrassing to say but soldiers here were fed dog food. It was fed to them as stew,” Mr Matveyev said, adding that dog food labels were covered up with labels reading “premium quality beef”.
He said he would contest a dismissal order issued by a superior after he posted the almost 10-minute video, in which he asked President Dmitry Medvedev and prime minister Vladimir Putin to intervene.
“It took me a month to determine through various reports exactly what was happening,” he said from Vladivostok, 6,400km east of Moscow.
The interior ministry troops command was cited by Russian agencies as saying that a number of the incidents that Mr Matveyev described had occurred, but that they had long ago been dealt with and that an investigation had been started.
President Medvedev has said rampant corruption in the ranks is one of the biggest problems facing Russia’s security forces.
The interior ministry maintains units of troops across Russia responsible for domestic security. They are separate from the army, which comes under the defence ministry.
Russia’s security services are at odds with themselves as they undergo unpopular reforms that are aimed at restructuring the military’s officer and troop structure, which critics such as Mr Matveyev say is ridden with corruption.
“This doesn’t happen by accident, it is a system,” he said. “Reforms are ongoing and we have to come out and say these things, we have to pay attention to these issues.”
He added that 18 illegal migrant labourers were housed at the Vladivostok base for a month and a half and were used for clean-up and construction jobs.
“They were Koreans or Chinese, I don’t know because they did not have any documents.” – (Reuters)