Within a few days, 30 draft offices are attacked in Russia and in the annexed Crimea. The perpetrators are often older people, some are also self-confessed supporters of the war. What drives them to set fire to military facilities? Their explanations are often whimsical.
Pupils at a school in Feodosiya in the Crimea were amazed when, after an attempted arson by a conscription authority in their town, they found the perpetrator recognized their Russian teacher Tatjana B. How can it be that the petite, 51-year-old woman suddenly throws a Molotov cocktail in broad daylight at the building of an office that is responsible for conscripting young men for the war in Ukraine? Especially since B. is known in her town as an ardent supporter of “military special operations” – according to local media reports, she collected donations and humanitarian aid for Russian soldiers and sent them to the front.
B’s attempted attack – she missed the target and was arrested – is just one example in a mysterious series of 30 arson attacks on conscription offices that took place across Russia and annexed Crimea in the space of a week. In Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan, Siberia, the Caucasus and other regions, several Russians have set fire bottles to fire in the past few days. In most cases there were no injuries, the buildings were not damaged or only slightly damaged, and the attackers were arrested without resistance after the crime. But why are Russians suddenly attacking military commissariats en masse now – 18 months after the start of the war?
Over 50, female, loyal to the regime
A quick look at the biographies of the perpetrators suggests that this is not an action by young opponents of the war who could be affected by a possible further wave of mobilization. Half of the identified attackers are over 50 years old. In Volgograd, an 82-year-old woman was arrested with a Molotov cocktail in a failed arson attack. Most perpetrators are women. In their actions they do not display or shout anti-war messages.
And almost all of them state after their arrest that they acted on instructions from strangers. So reports the Russian medium “shot” of a 76-year-old pensioner from Severodvinsk in the Arkhangelsk region, whom a “Ukrainian curator” is said to have contacted and demanded that the recruitment office be set on fire in order to “punish” the people there because they were “involved in high treason”. . In many other cases, too, there is talk of fraudsters and foreign “curators” who persuade Russians loyal to the regime to carry out arson attacks on military facilities.
Deprived of savings, instigated an arson attack
A family member of an elderly man arrested for attempted arson told the anti-government Exile media “Meduza” anonymously, the scammers first contacted his relative more than a year ago. They posed as central bank employees and tricked the pensioner into transferring his savings to them. Allegedly, a person got access to his account and plans to withdraw a larger amount, the scammers are said to have fooled the man. To prevent this, the man himself should transfer his money to a special account. Deprived of his money, the elderly man finally alerted the police, but the investigation came to nothing.
At the end of July, his relative received another call, the man tells “Meduza”. The old man is said to have been told that he would get his money back if he took “certain measures that are necessary for our country”. The retiree fell for the scam again: at the behest of the bogus investigators, he set fire to the draft board in his town and was subsequently arrested.
“You are a patriot of Russia, you must help your country”
Tatjana B., the Russian teacher from Feodosiya, apparently allowed herself to be manipulated by scammers. As the Russian tabloid “Komsomolskaya Pravda” reports, the woman was previously taken for the equivalent of around 30,000 euros. The Ukrainian domestic secret service SBU is clearly behind the action, the newspaper claims, without citing any evidence. According to the report, the scammers convinced the “suggested woman” that her husband, who died of an illness last year, was actually killed “by Ukrainian nationalists.” And she’s said to be next on the death list.
The “terrorists” had gathered in a building in the center of the city and the woman urgently needed to draw attention to them by throwing a Molotov cocktail at the house, the woman was told on the phone, according to “Pravda”. When the teacher expressed her doubts, she was told: “You are a patriot of Russia, you must help your country,” the report says.
Victims of fraud face long prison terms
The current attacks on conscription offices are not the first of their kind in Russia. In April, the government-critical portal “Mediazona” reported 16 attacks on conscription offices, banks and a police station. The perpetrators were often pensioners who were loyal to the regime and stated after the arrest that they had been ordered to carry out the crime by fake police officers or secret service employees.
Russian media and authorities have accused Ukrainian secret services of being behind the series of frauds. But there is no evidence for this. The Ukrainian government did not comment on this. Even if the Russian investigators find the real “clients,” some of the victims of the fraud could face long prison sentences for arson.
According to “Mediazona”, criminal proceedings were initiated in 10 of the 30 current cases. Seven Russians were charged with “deliberate destruction of or damage to property” and two others with hooliganism. They face prison sentences of up to eight years. A 35-year-old and a 70-year-old man who tried to set fire to a former draft office building in the city of Ulan-Ude are even being investigated for terrorism. The two face a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.