Russia's four-legged conscripts

Horses will have to be registered

The next targets for a new military recruitment drive in Russia might well be four-legged or four-wheeled, according to local television reports.

In the event of war, the new conscripts called up by the Russian Defence Ministry could include pets as well as Russian-made jeeps.

I'd drive it off somewhere so it couldn't be found

Jeep owner

Under the new proposals, donkeys, horses, camels, reindeers, sledge-dogs and four-wheel-drive vehicles will have to be registered at local military commandants' offices across the country.

Not surprisingly, animal-lovers interviewed by Russia's TV6 have expressed alarm at the reports that their pets could find themselves on a front line.

'No potential'

Deputy military commissar of Moscow Mikhail Prostodushev says reindeer and dogs could be of great use in the north of the country.

While, in the mountains in the south, travel is only possible on horseback.

So could racehorses, for example, be the key to any future war effort in the south?

Oleg Ivanov, spokesman for the Sokoros Riding Club, thinks not.

"Our horses are an elite class, sports horses, used to living in highly-controlled conditions," he told TV6.

"They're very expensive and I doubt they could show their potential in military service. They'd be dead in field conditions in about two days, I think. They couldn't stand it."

And car lovers do not seem much happier about the military proposals.

Compensation

At first, only new Nivas and UAZ jeeps will have to be registered. But there are plans to extend the list to slightly older vehicles and a couple of Western cars.

"I'd drive it off somewhere so it couldn't be found," one jeep owner told the TV station.

Another seemed more willing to contribute in the event of a war.

"If it happened, of course I'd let it go," he said.

The military say that, in the event of war, cars and animals would be commandeered but there would be some kind of financial compensation.

But correspondents say it will not be very much.