News
Goalkeeper of the Russian national ice hockey team Ivan Fedotov will be sent to serve in the army on Novaya Zemlya after being detained in St. Petersburg, TASS reports citing a source in law enforcement.
“Ivan Fedotov is already in Severomorsk for military service. Presumably, the place of service will be one of the military units located on Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic Ocean,” the source says.
The source told RIA Novosti that other former CSKA hockey players who have decided to move to the NHL may be drafted in the army:
“The Army owns the rights to many young players who are now playing abroad. If they don't officially resolve the issue with the military enlistment office, then such players as Egor Afanasyev, Artem Grushnikov, Ilya Sorokin, Denis Guryanov and Dmitry Samorukov could face the same problems that Ivan Fedotov did.
Fedotov was detained in St. Petersburg at the prosecutor’s request on June 1. At the military registration and enlistment office, the athlete said he was feeling unwell and was taken by ambulance to the 1st Naval Hospital.
Fedotov signed a contract with the NHL club Philadelphia Flyers in May and told the coaching staff and management of CSKA, which is patronized by Rosneft head Igor Sechin, that he was no longer willing to play for the club and wanted to leave Russia.
Service on Novaya Zemlya
In December 2019, Ruslan Shaveddinov of the Anti-Corruption Foundation was taken under escort by a special flight to Novaya Zemlya to serve in the 33rd anti-aircraft missile regiment.
On Novaya Zemlya Shaveddinov was practically isolated from other servicemen and deprived of any contact with the outside world: there was no cellular communication in his military unit and letters came very seldom.
Here is how Ruslan himself described his service in that place:
“I am deprived of access even to such basic things as water: I walk a few kilometers every couple of days, I fill up and carry a 49-liter canister of water, and two other soldiers carry similar canisters to make sure we have water. I am deprived of electricity: we have a former tractor generator, which we fill up every couple of hours with diesel fuel to at least have light. In fact, I still wake up sometimes in the huge barrel in which I live because water is dripping from above, because the roof is leaky, or because it’s so cold that all the walls are covered with frost. I really don't understand how such humiliation is even possible in 2020? If they decided to send me into exile, why so much humiliation?”