MOSCOW: Russia has seen a wave of attempted arson attacks targeting banks, shopping centres, post offices and government buildings over the last three days, according to media reports.

Around 20 separate cases of individuals trying to set off small explosive devices or launching fireworks into buildings have been recorded since Friday, mostly in Saint Petersburg, Moscow and the surrounding suburbs, according to the state-run TASS news agency and the independent Fontanka site.

Citing an unnamed law enforcement source, TASS reported that the people had been recruited by online fraudsters offering money for the attempted attacks.

Footage from surveillance cameras at some of the sites, shared on social media, appeared to show individuals using their mobile phones to film the fires they tried to set off.

Images from the aftermath of one attack showed a destroyed ATM and nearby windows blown out, while another showed a burnt-out police car.

Cash machines of state-run banks, shopping centres, post offices, military enlistment offices, police vehicles and other administrative buildings have all been targeted.

Putin vows ‘destruction’ on Ukraine after Kazan drone attack

State lender Sberbank reported a 30-per cent increase in attempted arson attacks over the last week, according to the RIA Novosti state news agency citing the bank’s press service.

Most of those detained after the attempted attacks were pensioners, TASS reported.

Sberbank said they had been recruited by scammers in Ukraine. Moscow’s FSB security service has previously warned Russians that Ukrainian fraudsters, posing as security agents, have called elderly citizens asking them to carry out arson attacks in exchange for money, or to regain access to blocked accounts.

There was no reaction from Kyiv to the wave of attempted attacks or accusations they were being orchestrated from Ukrainian territory.

Several Russian military enlistment offices were hit in arson attacks using homemade Molotov cocktails since Moscow ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

The recruitment buildings became more heavily targeted after President Vladimir Putin announced an unpopular conscription drive in September 2022 that saw more than 300,000 Russians forcibly drafted to fight in the conflict.

Russian courts have handed out several years-long prison sentences to those arrested for the attacks.

‘Ukraine destruction’

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday vowed to bring more “destruction” to Ukraine in retaliation for a drone attack on the central Russian city of Kazan a day earlier.

Russia accused Ukraine of a “massive” drone attack that hit a luxury apartment block in the city, some 1,000 kilometres from the frontier.

Videos on Russian social media networks showed drones hitting a high-rise glass building and setting off fireballs, though there were no reported casualties as a result of the strike.

“Whoever, and however much they try to destroy, they will face many times more destruction themselves and will regret what they are trying to do in our country,” Putin said during a televised government meeting on Sunday.

Putin was addressing the local leader of Tatarstan, the region where Kazan is located, in a road-opening ceremony via video link.

The strike on Kazan was the latest in a series of escalating aerial attacks in the nearly three-year conflict. Ukraine has not commented on the strike.

Putin has previously threatened to target the centre of Kyiv with a hypersonic ballistic missile in response to Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory.

And the defence ministry has called Russian strikes on Ukrainian energy facilities over recent weeks retaliatory hits for Kyiv using Western-supplied missiles to hit Russian air bases and arms factories.

Advances

The latest threat comes as Russia claimed fresh advances on the battlefield in east Ukraine. The defence ministry said on Telegram that its troops had “liberated” the villages of Lozova in the northeastern Kharkiv region and Krasnoye — called Sontsivka in Ukraine.

The latter is close to the resource hub of Kurakhove, which Russia has almost encircled and would be a key prize in Moscow’s attempt to capture the entire Donetsk region.

Russia has accelerated its advance across eastern Ukraine in recent months, looking to secure as much territory as possible before US president-elect Donald Trump comes to power in January.

The Republican has promised to bring a swift end to the nearly three-year-long conflict, without proposing any concrete terms for a ceasefire or peace deal.

Moscow’s army claims to have seized more than 190 Ukrainian settlements this year, with Kyiv struggling to hold the line in the face of manpower and ammunition shortages.

‘Captured soldiers killed’

Kyiv on Sunday also accused Russian forces of killing captured Ukrainian soldiers — an alleged war crimes violation.

A video posted by Ukraine’s 110th separate mechanised brigade showed “the shooting of soldiers who surrendered,” Kyiv’s human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said in a post on Telegram.

Published in Dawn, December 23rd, 2024