More than Half of Those who have Set Fire to Draft Offices are Over 50 and Two-Thirds are Women, ‘Verstka’ Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 2 – Over the last three days alone, “no fewer than 32 people were arrested for setting fire to [28] military commissariats,” the government offices which handle the military draft, the Verstka portal says. Of those detailed behind such actions in 17 federal subjects, more than half were over 50, and 30 percent were pensioners.

            That means that it is not younger men who might be drafted but rather their parents and grandparents who are taking such actions, another sign of the spread of anti-war attitudes among older Russians who are generally identified as the most supportive of Putin’s aggressive war against Ukraine (verstka.media/podzhigateli-voenkomatov-starshego-vozrasta).

            Moreover, the perpetrators arevoverwhelmingly women: 22 of those arrested for setting fire to draft offices were female. Only 10 were male, another indication the face of anti-war activism in Russia today is female. (cf. windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/10/putins-war-in-ukraine-having-extremely.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/04/feminist-anti-war-resistance-fas-leader.html).