Lyudmila Alekseyeva: state of servicemen injured in Chechnya 'is tragic'

Lyudmila Alekseyeva, Chairwoman of the Moscow Helsinki Group, has called the state of former Russian servicemen who became disabled in Chechnya tragic. "This question was repeatedly brought up at the sessions of the presidential human rights commission and during the meetings of commission members with the head of state," she said to Ekho Moskvy Radio.

According to her, producer Sergey Govorukhin said many times that the state was not able even to provide disabled soldiers with prosthetic appliances. "When members of the commission first met with the president on 10 December 2002, Govorukhin gave exact figures how many people had not been provided with prosthetic appliances yet and how many means were needed to do it. The president said it must be done and he would control it," Ms Alekseyeva said. "I learnt from reports Govorukhin made to the commission a year or a year and a half later that it had never been done."

During the second meeting with the president on 10 December 2003, Ida Kuklina, a leader of the Union of Committees of Soldier's Mothers, told about disgracefully small pensions for disabled solders, the head of the Moscow Helsinki Group added. "But there have been no considerable changes. This is a very serious problem," she said.