Moscow accuses kyiv of organizing a “massive” telephone campaign to manipulate Russians into setting fire to infrastructure
Russian authorities on Tuesday accused Ukraine of coordinating a telephone campaign “massive” to manipulate Russians, especially elderly people, into setting fire to infrastructure, such as military offices, in Russia.
Burnings of public buildings, including army recruitment offices, have been on the rise for several months, fueling speculation about the unpopularity of the Russian assault on Ukraine and the emergence of underground resistance movements . For the authorities, this wave of vandalism is essentially the result “a new phone scam tactic from Ukraine”, denounced the Ministry of the Interior.
According to this source, the callers say they have stolen money from their interlocutor and promise to give them back if they set fire to a building. Or they make believe that the fire is part of a plan to arrest criminals. “Sometimes they just threaten them with getting in trouble or even killing their loved ones”says the ministry. “Everything ends the same way: the request to set fire to military, transport or banking infrastructure”he continues, pointing out that this type of call has been “massively” reported in the last seven days. “Virtually all of these phone scammers are in Ukraine and give the same orders. The majority of their victims are elderly people.ensures the ministry.
In a separate statement, the Russian General Prosecutor’s Office said on Tuesday that this campaign “massive” coincided with advances, claimed by Moscow, on the Ukrainian front. The prosecution warns that the fires of military infrastructure can be considered as “terrorist acts” or some “sabotage”, very severely punished. In recent months, several manipulations of this type have already been made public in Russia, a country where telephone scams are commonplace.
In April, the news site mediazona counted at least sixteen public cases of Russian pensioners having tried to set fire to military offices or banks, with video surveillance images in support, after telephone scams. According to this site, two of these cases resulted in prosecutions for “terrorism”. But, in many other cases, the perpetrators of this type of fire say they are acting to denounce Russia’s assault on its neighbor and the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of Russians to go to the front.