Russian sentenced to 19 years for shooting army recruiter

Days later, outraged at prospect of relative being called up, Ruslan Zinin shot army recruiter with sawn-off shotgun at draft centre in Siberia

By AFP
January 20, 2024
Russian police and National Guard servicemen wearing face masks walk along Red Square in central Moscow. — AFP
Russian police and National Guard servicemen wearing face masks walk along Red Square in central Moscow. — AFP

MOSCOW: A Russian man who shot an army recruiter in protest at the Kremlin´s mobilisation drive for its Ukraine offensive was jailed for 19 years on Friday.

Russia saw a spate of attacks against recruitment centres after President Vladimir Putin in September 2022 drafted more than 300,000 extra men to fight in Ukraine.

Days later, outraged at the prospect of a relative being called up, Ruslan Zinin shot an army recruiter with a sawn-off shotgun at a draft centre in Siberia.

The victim was rushed to hospital and survived. Zinin was arrested on the spot.

“In order to disrupt the conscription of his relative, while in the military commissariat in Ust-Ilimsk, Irkutsk region, (Zinin) fired three shots at the military commissar from a sawn-off, single-barrel shotgun, inflicting multiple gunshot wounds,” the local Investigative Committee said on Friday. Zinin, 26, was tried under Russia´s anti-terrorism laws.