Gunman detained after shooting at draft office in Russia's Irkutsk region

A gunman has been detained after opening fire at a draft office in Russia's Irkutsk region on Monday, the local governor said. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani.

A gunman has been detained after opening fire at a draft office in Russia's Irkutsk region on Monday, the local governor said. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani.

Published Sep 26, 2022

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By Felix Light

The gunman, who in a video published on social media is seen identifying himself to police officers as 25-year-old Ruslan Zinin, opened fire at a draft office in the town of Ust-Ilimsk. A separate video of the shooting shows him firing at least one shot inside the draft office.

Reuters was unable to verify the videos.

Irkutsk region Governor Igor Kobzev wrote on the Telegram messaging app that the draft office head was in hospital in a critical condition, and that the detained shooter "will absolutely be punished".

Several draft offices have been attacked since Russian President Vladimir Putin declared a partial mobilisation last Wednesday.

Protests against the draft took place over the weekend in Dagestan and Yakutia, both of which have supplied disproportionate numbers of soldiers for the war in Ukraine. | Reuters

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Russian families bade tearful farewells on Thursday to thousands of sons and husbands abruptly summoned for military duty as part of President Vladimir Putin's new mobilisation, while pro-war Russian nationalists raged over the release of commanders of Ukraine's controversial Azov Regiment in a highly secretive prisoner exchange.

As women hugged their husbands and young men boarded buses to leave for 15 days of training before potentially being deployed to Russia's stumbling war effort in Ukraine, there were signs of mounting public anger over the mobilisation, which is supposed to call up 300 000 reservists or more.

More than 1 300 people were arrested at anti-mobilisation protests in cities and towns across Russia on Wednesday and Thursday, in the largest public protests since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed reports of booked-out flights and queues to leave Russia as "false information".

"The information about a certain feverish situation in airports is very much exaggerated," Peskov insisted during his daily conference call with reporters on Thursday. | The Washington Post.

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