Arson Attacks Sweep Across Russia

A new wave of arson attacks on local governments and military recruitment centers is gaining momentum in reaction to mobilization.

Following Vladimir Putin’s announcement of the Russian mobilization, arsonists have redoubled their efforts to set fire to military recruitment and administrative buildings, as well as one office of the United Russia party.

At least 20 military commissariats were set on fire in the first six months of Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine. The intensity of these incidents has now sharply increased. There are likely to be more new fires to added to this list, which is only partial.

The list below only includes fires that were started after Putin’s announcement of the mobilization on Sept. 21, 2022.

On Sept. 21, in St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod, recruitment offices were set on fire. A Molotov cocktail was said to have been thrown through a first-floor window in the Nizhny Novgorod fire.

On Sept. 22, there were attempted arsons in the Orenburg and Zabaikal regions. Also, Tolyatti, in the Samara region, part of a building burned down.

An “incendiary object” was flung into a city administration office in the Volgograd region on Sept. 23, and enlistment offices in the Amur and Khabarovsk regions were damaged by Molotov cocktails. A fire was started at a village administration building in the Altai region, completely destroying the post office.

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On Sept. 24 an elderly man was arrested on suspicion of attempting to burn down the municipal enlistment office in Kansk, Krasnoyarsk region. Car tires were set ablaze outside the local United Russia offices in Bashkortostan.

On Sept. 25, enlistment offices in the Leningrad, Mordovia, and Kaliningrad regions all caught fire. On the same night, in the Leningrad region, two combustible bottles were thrown through the window of a social welfare office in a rural settlement. That morning, the administration building in Bereslavka, near Volgograd, was completely destroyed by fire.