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On June 23, 2018, former contract serviceman Armen Margaryan, who faced a number of problems during and after the performance of military service in Military Unit N 2392, which belongs to the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and is located in Artashat, RA, turned to HCA Vanadzor in order to protect his rights.

From 2003 to 2005, he performed compulsory military service in the military unit in Kapan.

Starting from 2008, he held different positions. In 2014, he served as the commander of the training detachment for sergeants. After the school for sergeants had closed down, on his request, due to his family situation (minors, parents, whose health was poor), he was transferred to another location of the same military unit, being appointed as an officer of the diesel service department: a storekeeper of fuel oils. In September 2015, during the delivery and acceptance of job duties, he identified a deficit of 718 kg (more than 1,000 l) of gasoline. It turned out that during the delivery and acceptance, the former storekeeper added water to the gasoline container in order to conceal the gasoline deficit. Later, they tried to attribute this deficit to Armen Margaryan. Incidentally, in June 2016, having reimbursed the damage caused to the military unit, the former employee was appointed to another post.

As reported by Armen Margaryan, the military unit receives gasoline from “Flash” LLC located in Yerevan. In November 2015, following the receipt of gasoline, a deficit of 1700 kg (nearly 2,300 l) was identified. After reporting this to the head of service Mayor Kokchyan, who at that moment was in a military hospital in Moscow due to health issues, Margaryan was instructed to empty the gasoline into another container in order to check the existence of the deficit, as, according to the head of service, the problem might have been connected with the size of the container of the military unit. As a result, according to Margaryan, the deficit increased.

In December 2015, after returning from the hospital, the head of service, checking the amount of gasoline, stated that the deficit was tiny, without mentioning its exact amount. He suggested that Margaryan should turn to the drivers of the military unit on his behalf, asking to conceal the amount of missing gasoline. Margaryan, who worked in the military unit not only as a storekeeper but also as a pump attendant, had to fill cars with gasoline not to the full, about which he always reported to his immediate superior Mayor Kokchyan and to the chief logistics officer Lieutenant Colonel Yerefeyev. In order to conceal the volume of missing gasoline, when recording the numbers of kilometers covered by cars in special documents, the drivers of the military unit in their turn mentioned larger numbers not corresponding to reality, as a result of which the amount of missing gasoline was balanced. As for the concealed volume of the misuse of gasoline, Margaryan is not aware of it.

2 months later, in February 2016, upon Margaryan’s request, the commission checked the capacity of the container “P 50 N 8”. Following the check, it was found out that the measuring table compiled by the RA National Institute of Metrology did not correspond to the factual capacity of the container. It was established that the issue, allegedly, was not the amount of received gasoline but the inaccurately assessed capacity of gasoline containers in the military unit.

In June 2016, Armen Margaryan, not having experience of receiving fuel for the military unit, asked the commander of the military unit to attach officers from the officer staff. The chief logistics officer of the military unit, the head of the goods service and the head of diesel fuels service as well as one more person from the Internal Affairs Unit were attached to him. According to the documents, 102,000 l of gasoline was transferred in 7 gasoline tanks from “Flash” LTD located in Yerevan to Artashat. The whole information on the entire process of receiving the gasoline and the further deficit was recorded by the commission.

When emptying the gasoline tank in the military unit, incompatibilities were identified between the notes taken in the passports prescribed for measuring the volume of gasoline and the volume of gasoline that was factually in the containers.

The commanding staff of the military unit advised Armen Margaryan not to do further checks of the volume of gasoline but to be guided by the existing (fake) data in the meter passports. Otherwise, he would have to personally pay the money for the missing gasoline. Nevertheless, the serviceman did not agree to do so.

In August 2016, Margaryan presented a report to the commander of the military unit: to empty the gasoline in order to check its amount and to check it with a meter. A deficit of 10,500 (nearly 14,000 l) of gasoline was recorded. In order to identify the causes of the deficit, during the period between September and October 2016, the Committee of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation and the officers of the Internal Security Office conducted a 40-day administrative investigation.

Actions were carried out aimed at finding the degree-measuring tables of the National Institute of Metrology. As a result, it became clear that the documents on the volume of gasoline had been forged since 2014; 12 copies of such lists were found in the logistics warehouse; 18 more were found in the office of the head of logistics; incidentally, several meter passports were identified on the same container with different notes on the volume of gasoline.

According to Margaryan, cases of gasoline deficit were recorded later as well; in particular, during the period from September 2016 to April 2017, with the participation of different commanders, gasoline was emptied into different containers in order to check its volume. Every time, when measuring the same amount of gasoline, a deficit of different amounts was recorded: in particular, a deficit of 13,500 kg (approximately, 18,000 l), 8,000 kg (approximately 10,500 l) and 9,000 kg (approximately 12,000 l).

On April 15, 2017, on the ground of the contract period expiring, Armen Margaryan was discharged from the Border Guard Troops of the RF in the RA, not being willing to conclude another contract. Having been discharged from military service, he, nevertheless, was left to the discretion of the staff in the framework of the examination of the case conducted in connection with gasoline deficit in the military unit.

The body conducting the proceedings on the ground of gasoline deficit, RF Garrison Military Prosecutor’s Office N 312 located in Yerevan (Charbakh), established the fault of Armen Margaryan as the storekeeper of fuel oils, and in June 2017, the Russian Military Court in the RA imposed a fine on him in the amount of 4,900,000 AMD.

Margaryan appealed the decision rendered. As a result, the amount of the fine imposed on him was decreased to 3,500,000 AMD.

Learning that Armen Margaryan was going to appeal the decision before the Court of Second Instance in Rostov-on-Don, the commanding staff of the military unit offered a deal to him: to appoint him to any position, giving the opportunity to solve “the debt” during 3 years. Armen Margaryan, however, did not agree to it. He appealed the decision before the Court in Rostov-on-Don. He ensured his participation in the court sessions online (via Skype). The Court ruled to decrease the amount of the fine to 2,500,000 AMD. In early July 2018, the former contract serviceman appealed the decision again, this time before the Superior Court of Rostov-on-Don.

Nevertheless, the problems did not end there. In June 2018, on the ground of the expiration of the identity document period, Armen Margaryan applied to the Artashat Division of the Passport and Visa Department. Under Article 5 of the RA Law on Passports of Citizens, in order to receive a passport, persons liable for military duty shall submit a military enrollment certificate or a military ID card or a reference verifying the fact of military registration.

The Military Commissariat of Artashat failed to provide the required documents to Margaryan due to the personal file not being in the Military Commissariat. And this occurred when he, according to his information, was discharged to the reserve over a year ago, in April 2017. In fact, the citizen’s personal file had been kept in the military unit for over a year without any grounds. Two weeks after raising the issue, the Military Commissariat of Artashat received Margaryan’s incomplete personal file, due to which they failed to register A. Margaryan; however, there was no note on his discharge from military service or an official stamp.

At the Military Commissariat, Margaryan was informed that he would be registered after the receipt of his personal file from the military unit. As the file was received in June 2018, in the documents the period of his registration was to be mentioned as 2018. Yet, Margaryan did not agree to it, blaming the commanding staff of the military unit for groundlessly keeping his personal file in the military unit for more than a year. It is incomprehensible for the former service what status would be attributed to him for that one year of service in the case of being registered in 2018, when, in fact, he was not a serviceman and was discharged to the reserve, about which there was no note.

As a consequence of the military unit demonstrating inaction, a number of the citizen’s rights were violated: in particular, his rights to work, to freedom of movement and property as well as other rights.

It should be recalled that it is established by Article 10 of the contract concluded between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Armenia on 30.09.1992 about the status of the Border Guard Troops of the Russian Federation in the territory of the Republic of Armenia and the conditions of the activity of those troops that life sustenance functions (accommodation, utilities, medical support and so forth) for the subdivisions of the RF Border Guard Troops in the territory of the RA are performed by the Republic of Armenia, whereas the funding and logistics support are carried out by the two Parties, about which a separate contract was concluded.

That is, every year, a certain amount of money is provided from the RA state budget (no public data is available on the amount of the budget allocated to the Border Guard Troops of the Russian Federation in the territory of the Republic of Armenia) to the RF Border Guard Troops located in the RA for ensuring the protection of the border between Armenia and Turkey and the border between Armenia and Iran. A question arises whether any audit is conducted, or whether there is any supervision over those allocated funds, and how the corruption risks are prevented while managing those funds.