Throughout Russia’s war against Ukraine, baffling reports of Russian pensioners trying to set military enlistment offices on fire have emerged with amusing frequency.
But they’re not what you may think.
Seen at first glance by some as brave protests against the war, the string of bizarre arsons have actually been part of a now widespread scheme in which scammers convince the confused pensioners they’re on a secret mission to help the war effort.
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At least 16 such arson attacks have been reported so far, according to the independent outlet MediaZona, which detailed the bizarre incidents in a new report out Thursday.
They all had at least two things in common: The firestarters made no attempt to hide what they were doing—in some cases doing it in full view of police officers—and they told investigators they were just following orders from a mysterious caller.
Almost all of the arson attacks have involved the elderly, and most have been unsuccessful.
Earlier this month, a 73-year-old woman in the Sverdlovsk region TWICE tried to set fire to a military recruitment office in Pervouralsk before she was detained. She told investigators she was taking part in a “secret operation by the security services against terrorists,” Shot reported at the time.
According to her, a man identifying himself as “investigator Lebedev” told her she had to carry out the mission to “scare the terrorists” who’d infiltrated the military office.
In the first documented case of the scheme, last August, a 65-year-old Muscovite set fire to the vehicle of a defense official, screaming “Glory to our wonderful Ukraine!” But after her arrest, she told investigators she’d been carrying out orders from an unknown caller who told her she must do it to “help Russian soldiers.”
A 71-year-old woman who started a fire in a St. Petersburg bank in broad daylight last October was so convinced that the arson was sanctioned by higher powers that she didn’t even attempt to flee when police approached.
“Mission accomplished. Now get me out of here,” she told someone by phone as she was being arrested.
In March, Olga, a 67-year-old woman in Nizhny Tagil, walked up to a local military enlistment office yielding two Molotov cocktails. A patrol officer stopped her as she tried to light the first one, and video captured her receiving a call from the man who’d put her up to it even as she was in police custody.
As she asked him to explain to police the mission she’d been sent on, he told her the officers arresting her were actually “fake.”
“Try to hide right now, what are you even doing there? Have they released you or are you still being held?” the man asked.
“No, they’re holding me. We’re standing on the street where they stopped me.”
“Do you have anything left with you to mark the territory? Are there any bottles left? .. Do you have a lighter in your hands?”
“No,” a disheartened Olga responded.
While police in Olga’s case reportedly set their sights on the scammer instead of the duped pensioner, some people have been hit with terrorism charges after being ensnared in the arson scheme.
They include a 59-year-old woman in Kemerovo who hurled a Molotov cocktail at a military office last October after being told by a “law enforcement official” to “smoke out” the criminals inside.
Some younger Russians have also been duped in the scheme. In March, a 22-year-old student tried to set fire to an ATM after an “investigator” called and told him it was being used to send money to “terrorists from Ukraine.”
Russia’s FSB has claimed the scammers are operating from Ukrainian territory.
