In Russia, government and military objects have once again become targets of arson attacks ahead of a feared new mobilization for the war in Ukraine. Near St. Petersburg, a 76-year-old attacked such a military facility in Vsevolozhsk with Molotov cocktails, as the internet news portal Fontanka.ru reported on Wednesday. A video posted online showed the attack on the facade and cars parked in front of the local military commissariat.
arson attacks on Russian government and military objects – 82-year-old arrested
Another online video showed a woman setting fire to an incendiary device in front of the doors of a district military replacement office in St. Petersburg. A woman threw a Molotov cocktail at a military commissariat in the capital Moscow on Tuesday evening. In Ishimbai near the Russian-Kazakh border, an 18-year-old set fire to the door of a draft office. And on Wednesday night, according to the media, a man threw two incendiary devices into a military building in the port city of Nachodka in the Far Eastern region of Primorye on the Sea of Japan.
According to information from the Russian exile medium “Meduza”, more than half of the perpetrators are older than 50 years. Among them are many women. The Internet platform Baza reported on further attempted arson attacks in Maikop and Stavropol in the Caucasus, in Sestroretsk near St. Petersburg, in Moscow and in Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad). There, an 82-year-old, who survived World War II as a child, was arrested while attempting to set fire to a military commissariat in the city with Molotov cocktails. According to estimates by Russian government opponents, there have been over 130 arson attacks on government and military objects since the beginning of the war, 30 of them since the weekend alone.
Since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine in February 2022, there have been repeated attacks on military objects in Russia. After 300,000 reservists were mobilized in September 2022, the number of attacks on the district military replacement offices increased sharply. There are currently fears in Russian society that a new mobilization is being prepared.
