New overview of anti-war sabotage througout Russia over the past two weeks. The title photo came from Alexandrov in the Vladimir region. Please support our online newsletter for continuous work on this international rubric or the campaign to restore local community of shelled Kharkiv neighbourhoods through joining this fundraising. A couple of cups of coffee in your country even before the war could be equivalent in price to the daily wage of a worker in Ukraine. Many thanks everyone in advance!
![Russia](https://files.libcom.org/files/styles/small_wide/public/2022-10/%D0%B8%D0%B7%D0%BE%D0%B1%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B6%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5_2022-10-16_174357149.png?itok=TVpgiWhc)
With the announcement of open mobilization in Russia on September 21 and immediate multiple growth of anti-militarist subversive acts, it is possible to speak with confidence about the emergence of a small but active and stable revolutionary minority of various views, that at the moment cannot be suppressed by punitive measures. The general situation is more and more reminiscent of thundery 1916, when the revolutionary situation and mass anti-government movements had not yet appeared, but the ruling circles could already rule in the old way only with great difficulty...
Late in the evening on October 3, an uninvited guest entered the territory of the inter-municipal police department Kovylkinsky in the town of Kovylkino (Republic of Mordovia). He opened the front passenger door of the service car Lada Granta, doused the interior with a flammable liquid and set fire to it. A car parked near the traffic police building was left without a salon, although in the end it was possible to extinguish it. On suspicion of arson, a local 53-year-old enterpreneur Vasily K. Residents of Prokopievsk in the Kemerovo region complain about an unknown person who damaged at least 10 pairs of tires of Z-cars. The damage was carried out "by cutting with a sharp object". As you can see in the photo, in a parking lot in Yekaterinburg, someone smashed a Lada with a half-swastika with an ax. It is not clear whether the attack was connected with the sticker, but how beautiful it turned out!
In the early hours of September 11, the military commissariat in the town of Velsk in Arkhangelsk region was on fire. Local journalist Gulnara Netesova calls it an arson attempt. From her words, after it, cops came to a 20-year-old pregnant girl, who was fined for "discrediting the army" three days earlier due to an anti-war post on a social network. According to Netesova, the girl signed it because she was scared and wanted to be released as soon as possible.
According to the New Tuva pacifist initiative, at 2 a.m. on October 1, the military commissariat of the Kyzyl district was set on fire in the village of Kaa-Khem. There were no casualties, no one was detained. No more info.
On the evening of October 6, two parked cars caught fire near the Federation Tower in the business center of Moscow. Almost immediately, the arsonist was captured by the cops, while he shouted "No war!" It turned out to be Sergei Arushanov, a 26-year-old stage director who set fire to his car and then the fire spread to another one. In our opinion, the public destruction of own property in protest is a quite strange act: with a vehicle, he could do many more useful things, from radical actions to humanitarian aid for refugees. Sergei was sent under house arrest until December 7 - the court refused the investigation, which asked to take the man into custody. Charged under article "Hooliganism".
On the night of October 3 in Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan, an 11th grade student, whose name was not disclosed, came to the military commissariat of the Sovietsky district. The 17-year-old girl had three Molotov cocktails with her. She threw two bottles in the direction of the building but did not hit the target and set fire only to the grass a few meters from the wall (see the photo). The third cocktail was found on her when she was detained. As the schoolgirl explained to the police, she wanted to commit arson, being an opponent of the special operation and mobilization. Then she was placed under house arrest."According to media reports, everything did not work out for the girl right away: one of the Molotov cocktails leaked in her bag, during the throwing of the Molotovs she almost burned her hair, two cocktails did not reach the building and only the grass burned down, and with the third she was grabbed by passers-by and handed over to the police. Investigators found out that she had previously been detained for an anti-war picket. When asked where she got the Molotovs, the girl refused to answer, referring to Article 51 of the Constitution (the right not to testify against herself and her loved ones). She spent two days in a temporary detention cell, a criminal case was initiated on attempted damage to property".
An attempt to set fire to the enlistment office of the Sovietsky and Central districts in Krasnoyarsk occurred on the night of October 3. Some person threw two Molotov cocktails at the building and ran away. Police managed to catch him four days later. The suspect was 23-year-old Andrei Petrauskas. During interrogation, he fairly stated that he simply wanted to do a "good deed" for society. His photo is here:
On the night of October 5, in the Moscow region, an unknown person threw four Molotov cocktails through the window of an uninhabited barrack on the military unit's territory in the village of Zyuzino. Two of them crashed and caught fire, damaging the skin of the building. The other two did not even crash and were later found by the cops. The arsonist managed to escape, they are now looking for him.
Meanwhile, in the Sverdlovsk region, a criminal case was opened on the "organizing of railroad sabotage" (Part 1 Art. 281 of the Criminal Code). On September 30, it became known that a 29-year-old Vladlen Menshikov from Rezh (photo below) was detained by the FSB on suspicion that he had placed a jumper of wires on the rails of the railway tracks so that a train passing along the tracks would get off it. The jumper between the two rail threads was noticed by the railway workers. It was discovered and removed at the 80th kilometer of the Rezh-Striganovo section before the train passed along the road. The suspect can face up to 15 years. During the interrogation, which the operatives recorded on video, Vladlen says that he opposes war and for the overthrow of the existing government, and also tells about the methods to sabotage the railway supply for the Russian army.
The Anarcho-Communist Combat Organization (BOAK) published on October 9 a little evidence from followers in Barnaul, the capital of the Altaysky Krai: "The BOAK work lives on - the partisans dismantled the rail track for freight trains. As a result, there was a derailment of a freight car and a delay in trains. A blow to the economy is a blow to Putin's war machine. Mobilization, with the fact that the mobilized must buy their own equipment, has already shown that the dictatorship has almost no money left for self-maintenance. We continue to strike at the most valuable thing for them - their wallets!" Here's what it looked like:
In Nizhny Tagil, a native of Mariupol was detained allegedly for preparing an attack on the enlistment center in order to save the guys from conscription. According to pro-regime media, 59-year-old Viktor Rastorguev “planned to assemble an improvised explosive device and activate it in the military commissariat of Nizhny Tagil. The security forces found substances for making explosives in Viktor's back room – the man worked part-time in a managing company, and also worked as a janitor in one of the city hospitals". It was reported on October 13. Two criminal cases were initiated against the man for preparing to a terrorist attack and illegal manufacture of explosives, he is arrested. On his page there are posts criticizing Putin, war and capitalism:
On the night of October 6, someone set fire to the enlistment center of Goryachiy Klyuch in the Krasnodarsky Krai. The fire from two Molotovs was extinguished before firefighters arrived. Information appeared on social networks that the arson was arranged by a 42-year-old woman. The press service of the regional prosecutor's office reported that she was not involved in the incident. The police are investigating and looking for the arsonist:
On October 7, on the central square in Ulan-Ude, the capital of Buryatia, a pro-invasion banner hung by the city administration on a monument to Lenin was burned. The next day it became known that the FSB had captured two 17-year-old boys in this case. They were charged with vandalism. Both teenagers are residents of Ulan-Ude, one of them studies at the city college.
In the Republic of Bashkortostan, on the night of October 8, an unknown person threw a Molotov cocktail through the window of the conscription point of the Arkhangelsky district. Judging by the photo below, the office burned out completely. The districtal administration declined to comment further.
On the night of October 4, unknown ones burned down the office of the pro-Kremlin Stalinists CPRF in Salavat of the same republic. Earlier in this city was torched the entrance to the office of the ruling party United Russia with the tires doused with combustible liquid. This time, they probably threw a Molotov cocktail through the window. Everything burned out and went out by itself, as we can see on the photo:
On the night of October 11, the town administration of Bakal in the Chelyabinsk region was attacked. The attackers broke a window in a room on the first floor and threw several Molotov cocktails inside. The fire engulfed the premises, but it was soon extinguished by the guards before the arrival of firefighters.
On the evening of October 13, a police squad and firefighters arrived at the military commissariat of Tomsk (photo below). According to eyewitnesses, there may have been an arson attempt. There is no official info.
On the night of October 14, in Votkinsk, the Republic of Udmurtia, an unknown person broke a window and threw a Molotov cocktail into the premises of the military commissariat. With all this, two policemen were on duty near the building, but the watchman was the first to know about the incident from the sound of broken glass, running to put out the fire. The degree of damage due to fire is silent.
The next night, another military commissariat caught fire in Cherkessk, the capital of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic. As you can see in the photo below, the fire engulfed the first floor and the facade. There are no details about the extent of the damage. The enlistment center was in this building earlier, at the moment of fire it did not work, but what if the partisans just made a mistake?
On the night of October 16, someone burned the military commissariat of Shchyolkovo, in the Moscow region, with a Molotov cocktail thrown through the window. The fire destroyed the personal files of the conscripts, and mobilization in the area is disrupted, at least temporally. As we wrote earlier, in May an incendiary attack was made on the neighboring building of the same enlistment center. Nobody has been detained. Look at this beauty:
But direct sabotage of the death conveyor is possible without fire or explosives. For example, all students of the Omsk State University refused to deliver summonses to the army. After that, local activists entered the names of officials and deputies of the region supporting the war into a Google form offered for this to students.
Vladislav Kraval in Ukhta of Komi Republic, on September 25, called the military commissariat and stated about its preparing arson. Shortly before that, he saw the name of his eldest son in the list of mobilized. From the house where the search was carried out, the repressive forces seized a jacket with the letter Z crossed out and the inscription "Fuck the war". Kraval is in custody and is suspected of two criminal articles: "Vandalism motivated by political enmity and hatred" plus "Knowingly false report of a terrorist attack against social infrastructure facilities or causing major damage."
Russian opposition media reported on October 8 that more than 100 mobilized residents of the Bryansk region in a camp in the Belgorod village of Soloti have been refusing to go to war for more than a week. SOTA got a record of the persuasion and threats with that the officers were trying to send them to take back Liman. The refusal to go there is connected with their knowledge about another group of Bryansk mobilized, also around 100 people, from which only one man returned to Russia after the Liman assault (he ended up in the hospital).
On the evening of Thursday, October 6, the mobilized were promised to give the order to be sent to Ukraine at 4 a.m. the next day, but in the end the officers did not dare to give it, seeing steady resistance. At 6 a.m. on Friday, they were lined up on the parade ground and began to be persuaded, however, no more than two dozen people agreed to go to war, the rest continued to demand that they be sent to the border of the Bryansk region with Ukraine, which was promised during mobilization.
From the recording of the conversation of one of the mobilized with the colonel in charge of the unit that invaded Ukraine, came into the possession of the media, it became known that the period of "training" of the mobilized is from 3 to 5 days. At the same time, the colonel refers to a certain secret order, which he refuses to show to his subordinates. The same colonel threatens that if they refuse to go to the front, the mobilized will still be sent there later, and when they get to him, he will mock them.
What results can such treatment have? There are rumors from the Ukrainian military, not officially confirmed by anyone, that Russian mobilized soldiers in the Kherson region killed a commander who prevented them from surrendering to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The fighters tried in vain to negotiate with the leadership about leaving for the second front line, passing at least a short training session and receiving the minimum necessary equipment. However, their requests were ignored, after which they contacted the Ukrainian side. Almost all of the mobilized from the surrendered group allegedly did not have cartridges: they were transferred to the front and promised to provide ammunition in the near future. At the same time, the officers explained to the mobilized that the road back was closed to them. They said that for any step "from positions in the direction of the Russian rear, they will be shot on the spot by barrage detachments".
Preliminary agreements with the AFU on surrender were carried out by the invaders without the participation of their commander. He was also mobilized, but very afraid of punishment from the Russian special services after captivity. One of the junior officers began to resist and tried to make a fuss, but was killed by other mobilized.
This is in the regular troops, and we have some evidence that among the Russian prisoners recruited as irregular mercenaries of private military companies, only in the Donetsk direction, about 40 were shot to death for refusing to fight, and several dozen were shot in the legs. One of those executed is the influential Azerbaijani mafia boss Zaur Aliyev. In 2016, he was sentenced by the Moscow City Court to 18 years in prison for robbery, kidnapping and extortion. While serving his term, wrote a statement that he wanted to join the PMC Wagner and participate in the war. So, he went to Ukraine and then tried to run away. PMC fighters quickly caught and killed him. A case when the murderers and their victim match each other...
Direct action stops the invasion! No war but the social war!
In addition, we recommend you to appreciate such a story of disaster profiteering - how recruitment agencies for employment in Europe cash in on the deception of Ukrainian refugee women during the war.
And besides, you are welcome to look at this article about how Ukrainian men explain their unwillingness to join the army and how they try to break out of the "free" country.
Comments
Happy to see that the…
Happy to see that the consensus is that Ukraine is entitled to its self determination -- on this site at the very least.
"Russia: ‘This is not our…
"Russia: ‘This is not our war’: Bashkir nationalists create armed resistance"
https://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article64406