On this photo from the Moscow regional prosecutor’s office – the first day of this summer: in a fenced parking lot in Noginsk near Moscow, some unidentified person burned 35 shuttle buses and two passenger cars at dawn. The reasons for the attack are unknown, but even if it was not economic sabotage, such start of the season is impressive! A criminal case has been initiated under the article on the deliberate destruction or damage of property by arson out of hooligan motives.
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Summer is traditionally a period of decline in social activity and relative relaxation, but not this year, when the blows of Ukrainian troops and Russians serving in their ranks are already on the conventional territory of the Russian Federation. A new wave of mobilization was expected there in the fall, but it is possible that it will begin earlier. This will further fuel the situation in a country where outbreaks of radical popular resistance regularly make themselves known here and there, seeping through all the networks of state control like water bubbles in a slowly boiling cauldron.
Yesterday, Moscow philosopher Vitaly Koltsov was found not guilty on charges of attempted murder of riot cops and deserved leniency. Vitaly is a father of three children. According to investigators, on May 2, 2022, he "for political reasons" deliberately set fire to two paddy wagons to kill 12 servicemen. The defense and Koltsov himself claim that the defendant did not have the intent to kill the police, he only planned to spoil the paddy wagons. The jurors agreed to this. They considered him guilty of arson and property damage, but not of attempted murder. The judge postponed the final verdict until June 13, apparently he will look for how to change the jury's decision. "I’m guilty of setting fire to the paddy wagon but don’t make me a killer," said Vitaly on trial.
In the middle of May, a court in Novosibirsk arrested Viktor Skorobogatov until July 12, under suspicion of setting fire to a plane at the Chkalov Aviation Plant. This machine was mothballed for storage. The Legion “Freedom of Russia“, which published a recording of the action on its Telegram channel, wrote: "On the morning of May 8, 2023, in Novosibirsk, on the plant territory, unknown partisans destroyed a Su-24 combat aircraft. The aircraft was on the site of aviation equipment intended for repair and modernization. As we were informed, the plane successfully burned down. It will not need any repairs." The man is charged under Part 2 Art. 281 of the Criminal Code – "Committing an explosion, arson or other actions aimed at destroying or damaging enterprises, structures, transport infrastructure facilities and vehicles, communications equipment, life support facilities for the population." (As usual, we should note that this Legion is the combative wing of the Russian liberal supporters of Ukrainian power, and the spreading of information about their fight against their regime does not mean that their positions are close to anarchists.)
The All-People's Movement of the Legion "Freedom of Russia" reported a lot of new rail guerrilla cases. On the night of April 30, a violation of the usual train schedule was noted in the Sverdlovsk region. In the area of Kachkanar, two relay cabinets were destroyed:
On May 6, relay cabinets were torched in Divovo near Moscow, and on May 7 in the Magnitogorsk region. "All sabotage was committed at night, which minimizes harm to passenger trains and significantly complicates the transfer of military trains, the traffic of which is carried out mainly at night. Well, the view of fire at night is simply more beautiful," the same movement states. However, on May 19, in the Tula region, the arson was committed during daylight hours: "On the night of May 23, 2023, the partisans once again (is it not the tenth...?) "slowed down" the Trans-Siberian Railway. In the Novosibirsk region, another block of signaling, centralization and security was destroyed on the railway. Albeit not for long, but the pace of export of national wealth to China was suspended":
Another relay cabinets burned on May 17 near Vsevolzhsk in the Leningrad region, on May 21 – on the Ramenskoye – Bronnitsy railway line in the Moscow region, on May 25 – on the Bugach station in the Krasnoyarsk Territory (at once two such boxes), on May 26 – on the Moscow station Chukhlinka and in Lipetsk, on May 31 – in St. Petersburg (the Borovaya – Ligovo line).
Three schoolboys from Kazan will be tried under the article on sabotage for setting fire to such devices. On the railway near Derbyshki station, on the night of May 18, four relay cabinets were burned, due to which there was a failure in the schedule of five freight trains (photo below). The suspects are teenagers 14-15 years old. Punishment under the article on sabotage involves up to 20 years in prison.
On the night of May 7, two men reportedly tried to set fire to the enlistment center in Yekaterinburg. At about 1 a.m., the men came to the military commissariat of the Kirovsky and Oktyabrsky districts. They had a canister with 5 liters of gasoline. When the men approached the building, they were noticed by a cop guarding the object. Immediately after that, special services arrived at the scene and detained the visitors. They were taken to the FSB and reportedly told that they had been promised a reward of 40,000 rubles for arson.
Unknown ones tried to burn the FSB building in Usinsk of the Komi Republic. At about 3 a.m. of May 11, an unidentified person threw a Molotov cocktail through the window of the department. The bottle hit the window frame and it caught fire. The total fire area was 1,5 square meters. The attacker fled. Investigators have opened a criminal case under the article "Terrorist act".
On June 6, a court in the Komi Republic sentenced Vladislav Kraval. He was found guilty of vandalism and a false statement about the arson of the enlistment office (Part 3 Art. 207 of the Criminal Code). The man got 6 years and 3 months in a penal colony. Kraval was arrested in September. The court in Ukhta found that he made inscription "Fuck the war" on a Z-banner at the Palace of Culture. Shortly before this, the man saw the name of his son in the list of those mobilized in Komi.
Also 6 years in prison for damaging Z-banners was given to Togliatti resident Alexei Arbuzenko. He was found guilty of "discrediting" the Russian army, causing damage to property, "vandalism committed by a group of persons motivated by political or ideological hatred" and "involving a minor in a crime motivated by political or ideological hatred." In June-July last year, Arbuzenko and his son doused several Z-banners with paint and "disfigured with insulting inscriptions," the investigation say. Alexei worked as a speech therapist in a kindergarten, and also taught mental arithmetic, according to his profile on the tutors' website. His phones and the system block of the computer were confiscated.
On the same day, it became known that anarchist Alexei Rozhkov was taken from Kyrgyzstan to Russia at the end of May. He became the third person in the RF to set fire to the military commissariat after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He was detained and charged with "attempted murder" – allegedly there was a female watchman in the building. However, 6 months later, the article was reclassified as “damage to property” and Rozhkov was released from custody. Against the backdrop of statements by the authorities that the arson of enlistment centers should be qualified as "terrorist acts", he left Russia. Now he is in the 1st pre-trial detention center of Yekaterinburg. It is him:
46-year-old Igor Paskar was sentenced to 8.5 years in jail. He was convicted of terrorist attack and vandalism motivated by political hatred. Paskar will spend the first 3 years in prison, and the rest in a strict regime colony. “In the previous meeting, Your Honor, you asked if I was repentant? I understand that the severity of punishment may depend on the degree of repentance. But I will be dishonest if I say that I renounced my convictions,” the defendant said in his last word. In June 2022, an activist threw a Molotov cocktail at a Z-banner with the inscription “We don’t leave our own” and at the building of the Krasnodar FSB Directorate. After that, he was detained. From the Igor’s words, the next few hours were among the most terrible in his life. They put handcuffs on his hands and raised them so that his head dropped to the level of a man's belt. They also put a bag over his head, took him into the building and threw him on the floor. After that, they began to beat him with their feet. “They put a grenade or its dummy in my hands and said that they would pull out the pin, put a barrel to my head and began to threaten that they would shoot. After that, rings were put on the middle fingers of both hands and current discharges began to pass. Moreover, someone very heavy in weight sat on top of me so that I could not escape. At first, they didn't ask me anything. See how long I can take." Igor added that he lost consciousness twice during the torture.
“It was a public action. If I disappeared, it would lose all meaning. I am not a terrorist warrior to hide. I wanted to express my opinion, it was a cry. I am a simple person, a simple hard worker, like those who live in Ukraine, in the special military operation’s zone. I sacrificed myself for the regime, but I am not a terrorist. Which one is a terrorist? That's funny."
As it became known on June 4, the FSB opened a criminal case against a 26-year-old resident of the Chelyabinsk region on attempted terrorist attack (Part 3 Art. 30, Part 1 Art. 205 of the Criminal Code) and sabotage (Part 1 Art. 281 of the Criminal Code). Before the detention of a resident of Magnitogorsk, unknown people tried to set fire to the city enlistment office. The punishers accused the man of arson on the Ural Railway and plans of leaving to fight on the side of Ukraine. He was sent to Chelyabinsk. On June 4, the court sent him under arrest.
In the same Chelyabinsk region, the securities could not catch a 17-year-old rebel. Around one in the morning on June 4, a second-year student from some of the Ufa colleges Herman K. threw a Molotov cocktail into the military commissariat in Asha. The building was watched by three Russian Guards, but due to their innate clumsiness, they were unable to detain the guy. Unfortunately, on the same day he was identified and captured by the FSB. During interrogation, Herman calmly and honestly told that he acted in protest against the war. A criminal case was started under the articles of attempted terrorist attack and sabotage. “We draw attention to another heroism of the young man, imperceptible at first glance. All arsonists are required by the security forces to confess on video that they acted on behalf of Ukrainian curators for 15 thousand. If someone does not want to admit this nonsense on camera, they use torture or threats. But Herman, despite his young age, did not succumb and participate in discrediting the protest movement," notes the Black Book of Capitalism.
The head of the Dagestani village of Rubas was killed right near the administration building for taking away the only housing from a resident. Gajikurban Bayrambegov received a gunshot wound in the heart area. The murderer, 58-year-old Sadyk Tayibov, did not run away and surrendered to the police. The village administration recently sued the shooter for a land plot (bureaucrats need it more), and he became homeless. The moment of revenge was caught by a surveillance camera:
At 11 p.m. on May 15, 55-year-old unemployed Ya. Mamedov doused windows and the entrance of the 4th police station in Ulyanovsk with flammable liquid, set fire to it and ran away. The fire was quickly extinguished and no one was hurt. The attacker was identified almost immediately. The arsonist said that he was simply unhappy that the cops had begun checking on him – they were trying to find out the reason for the quarrels with the former cohabitant, from whom he has a 6-year-old son. If believe to the pro-Kremlin scum channel SHOT, the detainee was repeatedly tried for extortion, theft of documents, intentional infliction of grievous bodily harm, threatening to kill and a number of other articles. A case has been initiated against him under the article "Intentional destruction or damage to property", he faces up to 5 years in prison.
Alexei Tsaryov, a businessman from the Republic of Karelia, complained about threats from eco-defenders, tells From Karelia With Freedom. The general director of the Aquares BIO company and initiator to create a fish farm near the village of Plotina, said on May 23 on trial that grateful residents promised to shoot him and smash his car. That meeting took place in February; the protesters filed a lawsuit to cancel the building permit. In their opinion, production waste will fall into the water intake and pollute its water.
However, without well-developed horizontal solidarity in the local community, the feeling of a sudden and short freedom leads to chaos. A few days ago we showed scenes of looting in the borderland town of Shebekino massively shelled by the Ukrainian artillery.
Along with this, one of the loudest news of June is a double increase in electricity tariffs for the population by the government of Ukraine, and we touched on the issue of countering to this from below.
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