Moscow — Russia has boasted of a significant improvement in morale inside its bedraggled conscript army after reporting only 5,500 desertions this year.

Army chiefs attributed the decline in the number of desertions to the installation of lavatories in some barracks, an increase in rations, and the establishment of telephone hotlines where conscripts can report bullying.

Annual desertions have dropped to 5,500 from 16,697 in 1999, according to the military investigations directorate of the investigations committee of the Russian Federation’s prosecutor’s office.

Human rights groups, however, questioned the defense ministry’s claims that living conditions had improved in the armed forces.

While Prime Minister Putin quadrupled defense spending during his eight-year presidency, the vast majority of the money was spent on new nuclear weapons, tanks, and aircraft.

For the 400,000 conscripts who serve in Russia’s million-strong armed forces, life remains dogged by poor conditions and bullying by senior officers or older draftees, a practice known as dedovshchina, or “the rule of the grandfathers.”

The practice, considered a rite of passage, leaves dozens of soldiers dead every year. In a disturbing recent development, it has emerged that some conscripts have been forced into male prostitution to earn money for officers.