Posted on 09/26/2022 8:34:28 AM PDT by dennisw
Agunman opened fire at a draft office in Russia’s Siberian region of Irkutsk on Monday amid a growing backlash against President Vladimir Putin’s chaotic efforts to mobilize more people to boost his troops in Ukraine.
The man, whom officials have not identified, opened fire in the far-eastern city of Ust-Ilimsk, seriously injuring a recruiting officer, according to the region’s governor, Igor Kobzev. A video circulating online, confirmed by NBC News to have been shot in the draft office, showed people inside running for cover and screaming as the gunman fired.
The shooter has been taken into custody and an investigation has been launched, the Irkutsk division of Russia's top investigative body said in a release.
While authorities have not commented on the gunman’s possible motive, the incident highlights growing unease among the Russian public after Putin ordered a partial mobilization last week — an unpopular move that Kyiv and its Western allies have said shows his desperation to bolster his faltering military campaign in Ukraine.
It has led many to either flee the country or take to the streets in protest, resulting in more than 2,300 arrests to date, according to OVD-Info, a Russian independent protest monitoring group.
At least a hundred people were arrested in anti-mobilization protests in the North Caucasus region of Dagestan, it said — a rare example of dissent in a staunchly Kremlin-aligned region.
Dozens of women chanted “No to war!” in a protest in the Dagestani capital of Makhachkala on Sunday, according to The Associated Press. Russian media also reported that local police fired warning shots in the air after demonstrators from a local village blocked a major highway. NBC News was not able to independently verify these reports.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
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In the eastern Siberian town of Yakutsk, local media said hundreds of protesters, mostly women, led a traditional dance in a protest against the mobilization Sunday. OVD-Info reported at least 24 arrests there.
According to Neil Melvin, the director of international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based military think tank, the mobilization order has broken Putin’s implicit social contract with the Russian society in which the population ignored the war in Ukraine as long as the conflict did not directly affect them.
The growing outpouring of discontent in dozens of cities since then is a direct response to that, he said.
“I’m very skeptical that this mobilization will improve Russia’s fighting ability,” Melvin added. “These are people who will have very low motivation to fight in the war.”
Even before the mobilization effort, wartime recruitment drew heavily from the country’s more remote and poorer ethnic regions, such as Dagestan, Chechnya and Buryatia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia on Sunday of “a calculated imperial policy” in what he said was a deliberate effort to mobilize its indigenous people in regions such as the Caucasus and Siberia.
Related video: Thousands of Russians fear President Putin’s new draft orders
Still safer than Chicago.
Just saying.
Should be called a hero!
Damn hippies. Something tells me Putin is of the Mayor Daly School of hippie control.
Most likely would have been loading airplane in Murmansk, now he gets to ‘enjoy’ a Russian prison.
Not too smart.
Obviously fake news. They have strict gun control in Russia, so gun crime is impossible.
Defending the "Mother Land" is one thing, raping a poor neighbor does not elicit enthusiasm for any but the sociopaths and psychopaths among us!
As with a lot of nationalist swagger, it’s great when your country is throwing its weight around using the blood and sweat of grunts you will never meet, but when you yourself have to go to the front line and get blown up for that big hit of nationalist pride, it’s not such a great thing.
Russia is not the first country to find this out.
I was at a cook-out recently, and one of the people there said she met some Russians and they acted “morose.” I couldn’t help it; I had to say, “If you lived in Russia, you’d be morose too.” She laughed heartily.
That CLEARLY wasn’t the way. Everyone knows he should have walked in and said “Shrink, You can get anything you want, at Alice’s restaurant.” and walked out. They would have thought he was sick, and they wouldn’t have taken him. Or so I’ve been told.
‘Western media continues to ignore how Ukraine is using NATO weapons to kill innocent civilians in the Donbass’
https://ingaza.wordpress.com/2022/09/26/western-media-continues-to-ignore-how-ukraine-is-using-nato-weapons-to-kill-innocent-civilians-in-the-donbass/
‘Russia Counterblow, NYT Admits Ukraine Massive Losses in Stalled Offensive; UK Teeters on The Brink’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjkOTAPqwj8
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