New wave of arsons at military enlistment offices and local administrations unfolds across Russia

After Vladimir Putin announced the Russian mobilization, arsonists started to set fire to military enlistment and administrative buildings (and one office of the United Russia party) with renewed vigor. In the first six months of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine at least 20 military commissariats were set on fire; now the frequency of such incidents has increased dramatically. This is a partial list of new instances of arson – more are likely to follow.

This list contains only fires set after September 21, 2022, the day Putin announced the mobilization.

September 21 Fires were set in enlistment offices in St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod. The fire in Nizhny Novgorod was allegedly started by a Molotov cocktail thrown through a first-floor window. 

September 22 There were arson attempts in the Orenburg and Zabaikal regions, and part of the city administration building in Tolyatti, in the Samara region, was burned down.

September 23 Enlistment offices were damaged by Molotov cocktails in the Amur and Khabarovsk regions, and an “incendiary object” was thrown into a city administration building in the Volgograd region. In the Altai region, a fire was set at a village administration building, which fully burned out the post office located there.

September 24 An elderly man was suspected of attempting to burn down the municipal enlistment office in Kansk in the Krasnoyarsk region. In Bashkortostan, car tires were set on fire outside the local United Russia offices.

September 25 saw fires in enlistment offices in Kaliningrad, Mordovia, and the Leningrad region. That night, also in the Leningrad region, two bottles with combustible contents were thrown through the window of a social welfare office in a rural settlement. That morning, the building that housed the administration of the town of Bereslavka, near Volgograd, was burned down completely.