Shooter Of Enlistment Officer In Siberia Gets 19 Years In Prison On Terrorism Charge

 

By RFE/RL's Siberia.Realities

Ruslan Zinin, who shot a military commissioner at an enlistment center in Siberia in 2022 amid protests against a military mobilization for the war in Ukraine, has been sentenced to 19 years in prison.

A military court in the Siberian city of Irkutsk sentenced Zinin on January 19 after finding him guilty of conducting a "terrorist act" and illegally possessing a firearm.

Zinin shot military commissioner Aleksandr Yeliseyev at a recruitment center in the city of Ust-Ilimsk on September 26, 2022, while he was recruiting soldiers amid rising tensions over the Kremlin's unpopular mobilization to support Russia's ongoing unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

Yeliseyev was rushed to hospital in grave condition but survived.

Zinin was initially charged with attempted murder, but in March last year the charge was changed to "a terrorist act."

Zinin's trial was held behind closed doors. Media reports said earlier that Zinin had explained his action as an attempt to prevent the recruitment of his friend to the war in Ukraine.

Later reports said Zinin told the judge that he wanted to prevent one of his three brothers, who was summoned to the recruitment center, from being mobilized to the war after his best friend, who never served in the army, was sent to Ukraine and died there.

Zinin's brother, who was 18 at the time, was not mobilized after the incident.

The mobilization to the war in Ukraine, announced by President Vladimir Putin in September 2022, was met with countrywide protests and the mass flight from Russia of men potentially eligible for military duty.

Thousands of people were detained in Russian towns and cities for protesting against mobilization, while several military enlistment centers and other administrative buildings in the country have been targeted in arson attacks.

The largest protest against the mobilization took place over the weekend in Makhachkala, the capital of the North Caucasus region of Daghestan.