Partial mobilization continues in Russia. According to media reports from Russia, a man set himself on fire.
RYAZAN – A man set himself on fire in desperation over his imminent conscription to the war against Ukraine in Russia. The news outlet Novaya Gazeta on Monday (September 26) published surveillance camera video showing a person dousing himself with liquid and shortly afterwards burning his whole body.
According to eyewitnesses, the burning man at the bus station in the city of Ryazan, around 200 kilometers south-east of Moscow, shouted: “I don’t want to go to the front!” Police officers are said to have extinguished the fire, and the man was then injured and taken to a hospital. There were different reports in the Russian media about his exact state of health. There were initially no official announcements about the incident, which is said to have happened on Sunday.
Russia: Putin had ordered partial mobilization
Last Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the partial mobilization of reservists. He was responding to his army’s recent defeats in the war against Ukraine that Russia began more than seven months ago. Officially, a total of 300,000 Russians are to be conscripted for the front – which caused panic among many citizens. For days there have been repeated protests and attacks on conscription offices across the country.
According to unknown media reports, in the small town of Tarusa, around 130 kilometers south of Moscow, a Molotov cocktail was thrown at the building of a recruitment center. In the Russian republic of Dagestan in the Caucasus, where there had been major protests on Sunday, around 120 arrests have now been reported.
Russia: Opposition denounces immediate recruitment
The opposition movement OVD-Info therefore denounced, among other things, the immediate recruitment of the prisoners. The entry into military service should follow a fixed pattern, as the Russia expert at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies, Samuel Ramani, confirmed to the Berliner Zeitung . According to this, the identity of the demonstrators will be determined by the police after the arrest and forwarded to the internal affairs authority. (mse/dpa)
