The goalkeeper of the Russian national hockey team Ivan Fedotov will be sent to serve in the army in Novaya Zemlya after being detained in St. Petersburg. This was reported by TASS with reference to a source in law enforcement agencies.
“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 said.
A source from RIA Novosti said that the army could also threaten other former CSKA hockey players who decided to move to the NHL:
“CSKA owns the rights to many young players who are now playing abroad. If they have not officially resolved the issue with the draft board, then the same Yegor Afanasiev, Artem Grushnikov, Ilya Sorokin, Denis Guryanov and Dmitry Samorukov may face the same problems that Ivan Fedotov had.
Fedotov was detained in St. Petersburg at the request of the prosecutor's office on June 1. In the military registration and enlistment office, the athlete's health worsened and he was taken away by ambulance to the 1st Naval Hospital.
In May, Fedotov signed a contract with the Philadelphia Flyers NHL club and told the coaching staff and management of CSKA, which is patronized by the head of Rosneft Igor Sechin, that he was no longer ready to play for the club and wanted to leave Russia.
Russian commentator Kirill Nabutov, in a conversation with The Insider, spoke about the reasons behind this story, as well as Fedotov’s chances to return to big-time sports after a long break:
A variety of options are possible here – it could be a punishment for the fact that a person did not fulfill some conditions, it could be revenge for the fact that he did not renew his contract with CSKA – these are all guesses.
Previously, in CSKA, everyone was either officers or conscripts-soldiers, if they were called up and not hidden in some institute or any other place that gave a reprieve. Today CSKA is a big private business where big private money is circulating.
In Soviet times, the right athlete could be drafted into the army, and he lived quietly in the city center or at home and was listed as a private. There were entire sports companies where athletes were sent to serve, so that they would serve time there. Any boy who showed some ability in sports, but did not show any ability in studies, had a chance – it suddenly turned out that he was a talented football player or figure skater. They told him: “Well, what are you going to do in some Petrel there. Look – we call you into the army, you quickly get your first officer rank there, do the same, then you finish your service, sports at the age of 30, then you are a captain or major, then lieutenant colonel and colonel, you will get a good position, salary and pension are guaranteed to you ".
But Fedotov earns money that the colonel of the Soviet army could not even dream of. If he goes to Philadelphia for a year, with all the taxes that are there, he will become a millionaire for life. Today it's just a completely different story.
What will happen to Fedotov next – time will tell. For a person who is in preparation mode and who has had a few years of performances at the highest level, any pause is harm and a chance to break. History knows cases when people recovered and went back. A break lowers physical qualities, but does not destroy.
Service on New Earth
In December 2019, Ruslan Shaveddinov, an employee of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, was taken under escort on a special flight to Novaya Zemlya to serve in the 33rd anti-aircraft missile regiment.
On Novaya Zemlya, Shaveddinov was practically isolated from other military personnel and deprived of any connection with the outside world: there was no cellular connection in his military unit, and letters were extremely rare.
Here is how Ruslan himself described the service in this place:
“I don’t even have access to basic things like water: I walk several kilometers every couple of days, pick up and drag a 49-liter canister of water, and two more fighters drag the same canisters so that we have water. I am deprived of electricity: we have a former tractor generator, which we fill every couple of hours with a solarium so that we at least have light. I really still – the month of July – sometimes wake up in the barrel in which I live, from the fact that water is dripping from above, because the roof is full of holes, or because the cold has covered all the walls with frost. I really don’t understand why they mock a person so much in 2020 – well, since they decided to send me into exile, why mock so much?