UPDATE 1-Gunman detained after shooting at Russian draft office in Siberia

A gunman was detained after opening fire at a military draft office in Russia's Irkutsk region on Monday, the local governor said.


Reuters | Irkutsk | Updated: 26-09-2022 16:16 IST | Created: 26-09-2022 16:06 IST
UPDATE 1-Gunman detained after shooting at Russian draft office in Siberia
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  • Russian Federation

A gunman was detained after opening fire at a military draft office in Russia's Irkutsk region on Monday, the local governor said. 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 Siberian 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 regional 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".

Separately, local media reported that a man attempted to set himself on fire at a bus station in the city of Ryazan, about 185 km (115 miles) southeast of Moscow, shouting that he did not want to fight in Ukraine. He was taken away in an ambulance. A number of draft offices have been attacked since Russian President Vladimir Putin declared a partial mobilization last Wednesday to bolster Russian forces in Ukraine.

Protests against the draft took place over the weekend in the regions of Dagestan and Yakutia, both of which have supplied disproportionate numbers of soldiers for the war. Rights group OVD-Info said that at least 101 people were detained on Sunday in Dagestan's capital Makhachkala, in a rare example of mass dissent in the usually tightly controlled North Caucasian region.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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