RUSSIA said more than 300 servicemen committed suicide last year despite higher spending and reforms to try to improve army conditions and equipment.
Rights groups and some former commanders said the high rate of suicides in the Russian army is caused by a culture of violence and negligence by officers and senior generals.
Hazing, when conscripts are bullied by older soldiers, is rampant and tens of thousands of young men and their parents try every year to avoid the compulsory draft.
"Almost a battalion of military servicemen - 341 people - were irrevocably lost in the past year as a result of suicides," Chief Military Prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.
Mr Fridinsky said the total number of suicides had actually fallen from previous years but had risen as a proportion of non-combat losses.
Many young men in Russia pay bribes to classify themselves as unworthy to serve in the army because of the notoriously harsh treatment meted out to new recruits. But Mr Fridinsky said half of the suicides were among regular contract servicemen - who would not face the same level of hazing.
Itar-Tass news agency quoted the Defence Ministry as saying that about 100,000 young men are exempted from the draft every year due to psychological problems.
Defence spending on Russia`s armed forces, which were starved of money after the fall of the Soviet Union, soared under former president Vladimir Putin.
The military top brass has repeatedly said generals are trying to cut out bullying and reduce the number of non-combat casualties in the armed forces, in which more than one million people serve.
