Moscow: Attackers from the CIS state
Eleven dead after shooting at Russian military base
10/17/2022, 10:33 am (updated)
Attackers opened fire on a group of Russian recruits at a training ground in the Russian border region of Belgorod. Eleven people die. According to Kyiv, the shooters are said to come from Tajikistan – the trigger is said to have been a dispute about religious things, among other things.
According to Russian sources, at least 11 volunteers fighting in Ukraine were killed and 15 others injured in an attack on a military base near the border with Ukraine. “Two citizens of a CIS country” carried out “a terrorist attack” on the training ground in the Belgorod region on Saturday, the Defense Ministry said in Moscow.
The perpetrators opened fire on the unit with automatic weapons during target practice by “volunteers for special military operations” in Ukraine, it said. The “terrorists” were shot. No civilians were killed, the governor of the Belgorod region said in a video on Telegram.
The ministry did not provide any further information on the identity of the attackers. The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is an association of former Soviet republics. Oleksiy Arestovich, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said in a YouTube video that the men were from Tajikistan and got into a fight with the others over religious issues. However, this could not be independently confirmed. Tajikistan is a predominantly Muslim country.
Four weeks ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the partial mobilization of reservists after setbacks by the Russian army in Ukraine. According to government information, more than 200,000 people have been drafted since then, and the planned number of 300,000 should be reached in around two weeks. After the partial mobilization was announced, there had been protests and attacks on recruitment offices. Thousands of Russians also fled abroad to avoid confiscation.
Situation around Belgorod tense
In the Belgorod border region, the situation has been tense for days. The authorities report Ukrainian attacks almost every day. According to the governor, a fuel depot near the regional capital of the same name, Belgorod, was shot at on Saturday. On Friday, after an attack on a power station, the power went out temporarily. The Russian secret service FSB reported on Wednesday the arrest of eight suspects after a bomb attack on the bridge to the Crimea annexed by Russia and at the same time declared that it had foiled two planned Ukrainian attacks.
Violent incidents are common in Russian barracks. The background is brutal harassment of low-ranking soldiers. Degrading admission rituals and abuse are often triggers for suicide or acts of violence. In November 2020, a young conscript killed an officer with a hatchet and shot dead two other military personnel at an air base in Voronezh. In October 2019, a 19-year-old shot dead eight comrades and two officers while on guard duty at a base in Siberia. He later wrote in a letter that he had experienced “hell” due to regular harassment in the army.
(This article was first published on Sunday, October 16, 2022.)