“The police are already looking for you. I’m a scammer.” How Russians are tricked into attacking military enlistment offices and polling stations

The first reports of arson attacks on military enlistment offices in Russia appeared shortly after the start of the invasion of Ukraine. Such attacks continued in 2024, but in the third year of the war, the type of arsonist and their motives changed: while previously it was someone protesting the war, now it is most often a victim of phone scammers.

The deception usually unfolds in two stages: scammers, posing as law enforcement officers, first extort money from victims and then persuade them to set fire to a military enlistment office, bank or car. Sometimes they promise to return the stolen money, intimidate them, or convince the arsonist that, by attacking the military enlistment office, they are helping the security services catch real criminals.

In December 2024, Russia was hit by a record wave of attacks using fireworks: dozens of people set them off inside shopping centres, near ATMs and police stations.

Shortly before New Year’s, 18-year-old first-year Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) student Petr Vetchinkin committed suicide in Moscow. His mother said that on the day of his death, the young man “was in constant correspondence and answering calls from unknown persons,” but “refused to carry out instructions to commit a terrorist act.”

Mediazona has investigated how many arson attacks on military enlistment offices and other buildings have been committed under the influence of scammers since the start of the war and how the Russian authorities are punishing the deceived arsonists.

In the 3 years since the start of the war, scam-related arson attacks have overtaken anti-war ones

Forty-nine-year-old Ekaterina Babaeva from the village of Burepolom in the Nizhny Novgorod region has four sons. One is in a high-security prison for murder, the second—an airborne officer—has been fighting in Ukraine since the beginning of the invasion; he participated in the partial occupation of the Kyiv region and was in Bucha and Hostomel. Together with her third son, Maxim, Ekaterina set fire to the military enlistment office in the town of Shakhunya, 70 kilometres from their village, on November 15, 2023. Maxim, who was 17 at the time, threw a Molotov cocktail at the building.

The Babaevs were detained at the scene. They were both charged with committing a terrorist act as part of a group; Ekaterina was additionally charged with involving a minor in a particularly serious crime. On July 24, 2024, the Second Western District Military Court sentenced them: Ekaterina received 13 years in a penal colony, Maxim—four and a half years. The prosecutor had requested 20 and eight years, respectively. The woman’s youngest son, eight-year-old Igor, was taken into care after her detention.

The Babaevs’ decision to set fire to the military enlistment office was not because they were against the war in Ukraine. When Maxim threw the Molotov cocktail, Ekaterina was live-streaming to phone scammers who had convinced the mother and son that they were participating in an FSB special operation.

According to our calculations, in 2022, only six attacks were provoked by scammers while 71 attacks were motivated by anti-war sentiment.

In 2023, this ratio began to change: 89 attacks (including 14 attacks on banks) organised by scammers versus 21 anti-war arsons.

At the end of July and the beginning of August 2023, a massive wave of arson attacks organised by scammers swept across Russia. Social media was filled with footage of bewildered people being caught in broad daylight near military enlistment offices with Molotov cocktails. Often, the arsonists—mostly women—remained in contact with the manipulators until the very end. Mediazona counted at least 37 attacks provoked by scammers between July 29 and August 3, 2023.

In 2024, scammers organised at least 92 attacks. Their victims tried to set fire to cars, shopping centres, post offices, multifunctional centres, banks, military enlistment offices, police stations, city and village administration buildings, a “military temple,” a “special military operation” museum, a detention centre, the house of the chief engineer at a military facility that designs weapons systems, and a New Year’s tree. In one case, two women wrote “HUR”, the name of the Ukrainian military intelligence agency on a monument to Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov in Moscow. Sixty-five of the 92 attacks last year occurred between December 13 and 27. This was the largest wave of arson attacks organised by scammers.

During the whole of last year, we recorded only one arson attack motivated by political reasons: on February 16—the day it was announced that Alexei Navalny had died in prison—a ninth-grade student named Vladimir threw a petrol bomb at the United Russia party reception office in Moscow. In a video message, he accused the authorities of murdering the opposition leader and called for the release of political prisoners. He was detained.

One reason for this change may be that Russians protesting against the war have become disillusioned with arson as a form of protest. Although these symbolic gestures do not significantly harm Russia’s military, they are punished extremely harshly. This investigation has identified 66 verdicts in cases of arson motivated by anti-war sentiment. The majority of those convicted—for 54 attacks—were imprisoned, with 24 facing prison terms of 10 years or more. The longest sentence was 19 years.

Meanwhile, scammers, who previously only extorted money from Russians, realised during the war that they could get their victims to engage in any irrational behaviour—for example, committing arson.

In total, we have identified 187 attacks organised by these scams since the start of the war.

Mediazona has been unable to verify whether each incident resulted in criminal charges, but details of the charges are available in 132 cases:

• 79 cases of property damage (Article 167 of the Criminal Code);
• 28 cases under terrorism legislation (Article 205);
• 21 cases of hooliganism (Article 213);
• 2 cases of attempted murder (Part 3 of Article 30, Article 105);
• 1 case of damage to a memorial (Article 243.4); and
• 1 case of attempted assault on a law enforcement officer (Article 317).

Since the start of the war, we have counted 280 attacks in which arsonists either protested against the war or acted under the influence of scammers. In a further 105 cases, their motives were different—or could not be determined.

Scam victims are punished less severely than anti-war activists; most receive suspended sentences

In early June 2023, 77-year-old Olga Morozova from Kaluga received a call from a man posing as an investigator, who told her that her nephew had applied to Sberbank using her power of attorney. Morozova replied that she did not have a nephew. She was then contacted by a woman who identified herself as a bank employee and advised her to transfer all her money to “safe accounts” to prevent it from being stolen by fraudsters.

The pensioner believed her and transferred first 300,000 roubles (about $3,000), and then—at the direction of the same “investigator”—another 500,000 roubles (about $5,0000 of her husband’s savings to the specified account.

The scammer then told Morozova that a loan of 900,000 roubles ($9,000) had been taken out in her name and, since she no longer had any money, instructed her and her husband to set fire to a military enlistment office, claiming it housed “people who are going to fight on the side of Ukraine.” He told her this was necessary to “create panic at the entrance” and help apprehend them.

The pensioner agreed. On July 31, 2023, she went to the military enlistment office, poured solvent on a window, set it alight, and broke the glass with a stone. Morozova was immediately detained. The court gave the Kaluga resident a one-year suspended sentence for attempted arson.

This is a fairly typical outcome in cases against victims of phone scams. We concluded that they are generally punished much less severely than anti-war arsonists.

Court and media reports show that verdicts are known in 56 cases of attacks organised by scammers. The majority of these (41) were handed down under the article on intentional damage to property by arson (Part 2 of Article 167 of the Criminal Code). Hooliganism was the second most common charge—nine cases. One other case involved damage to a memorial. Five verdicts were handed down under terrorism legislation (these will be examined separately).

In the majority of cases (30), defendants were given suspended sentences, avoiding immediate imprisonment. 13 received prison sentences, five of which involved terrorism charges. Other less frequent outcomes included: cases being dropped due to reconciliation or the imposition of a judicial fine (4); compulsory labour (3); fines (4); compulsory medical measures (1); and restrictions on liberty (1).

Scam victims are sometimes charged with terrorism, guaranteeing long sentences

The outcome of these cases is effectively determined not in court, but at the charging stage. If an arsonist is charged under terrorism legislation, a lengthy prison sentence is almost certain. We have identified 28 cases brought against scam victims under terrorism charges.

Verdicts have already been delivered in five of these cases. Among those convicted are Ekaterina Babaeva and her underage son, Maxim, who set fire to a military enlistment office in the Nizhny Novgorod region and received 13 years and four and a half years respectively. Three other defendants—two pensioners and a young man—received prison sentences of five, 10, and 11 years.

It is unclear what criteria investigators use to decide which arsonists to charge with terrorism—those accused under this serious legislation did essentially the same thing as people who received suspended sentences. The uneven geographical distribution of “terrorism” charges is also striking: 10 of the 28 cases are under the jurisdiction of the FSB in St Petersburg and the surrounding Leningrad region.

Sixty-six-year-old Zhumagul Kurbanova was unfortunate enough to commit arson in this area. “I honestly admit what I did, but I’m not a terrorist! I didn’t want to hurt anyone or kill anyone; I wanted the scammers to be jailed so that other people wouldn’t suffer. That’s the truth,” she said in her final statement to the court. The First Western District Military Court sentenced her to 10 years in prison; the prosecution had requested 12. Kurbanova described in detail how she had been scammed, but the court did not take this into account.

In August 2023, Kurbanova was contacted by people posing as security officials. They convinced her that her savings were at risk. She took out loans totalling 200,000 roubles (approximately $2,000) and transferred them to a “safe” account. This did not help—the money was stolen.

Then, the “security officials” suggested a way to punish the perpetrators: set fire to a military enlistment office and lure the scammers out. Her interlocutors convinced the woman that this was her duty—“as a citizen of Russia and as a conscientious person.” For participating in the “secret operation”, they promised Kurbanova 50,000 roubles (less than $500) as a “reward from the state”, and threatened her with a debt of one million roubles ($10,000) if she refused.

The pensioner complied, and on August 1, 2023, went to the military enlistment office on Angliysky Avenue in St Petersburg. At the door, she became nervous, dropped the bottle of flammable liquid, set the spilled mixture alight, recorded a report, and returned home, confident that she would soon be thanked.

At 2am, there was a knock at Kurbanova’s door. She was surprised. “I didn’t realise they had come for me because of the crime. I calmly opened the door, and two plainclothes officers came in and showed their IDs. They said: ‘So, you set fire to the military enlistment office?’ And they detained me,” she recounted.

The verdict in Kurbanova’s case has not been published; however, according to a press release from the St Petersburg courts’ press service, the investigation interpreted her actions as collaboration with “instigators” for money. She was charged with committing a terrorist act.

In five cases, scam victims were initially charged with terrorism, but the charges were later reduced to arson; this is a new development

Anti-war arsonists often faced escalating charges: they were initially charged with property damage, but the FSB would then take over the case, changing the charge to terrorism. However, in the case of attacks organised by scammers, we found instances of the reverse—charges being downgraded—which was not seen in cases of anti-war arson.

Elena Sharova from Kemerovo, Andrei Arefyev from Ulan-Ude, Davronbek Yuldoshev from St Petersburg, Vladimir Vaitzel from Polevskoy (Sverdlovsk region), and Elena Chernykh from Yelets—all share one thing in common: during the investigation, they were charged with committing terrorist acts, but were ultimately tried on arson charges. This means that at some point, investigators reclassified the charges. What influenced their decision remains unclear.

Arefyev’s accomplice, 70-year-old Lyudmila Tokareva, did not live to see the trial. The pensioner and 34-year-old Arefyev, a bulldozer driver, were brought together by phone scammers in August 2023 and persuaded to set fire to a military enlistment office in Ulan-Ude to catch criminals.

The arson is described in the court ruling as follows: Tokareva, “facilitating the process of arson, held an open bag containing four bottles of petrol and pieces of fabric, ensuring Arefyev a continuous supply of them in this position, while Arefyev, alternately taking four bottles of petrol and pieces of fabric from this bag, set fire to the pieces of fabric on the bottles, after which he threw the burning petrol bottles at the building.”

A week after her detention, Tokareva died—a blood clot had dislodged. Arefyev, who lived in the village of Sosnovo-Ozerskoye with his wife and three children, left his family during the investigation. “I don’t want anyone telling the children that their father is a terrorist,” the man explained, according to his wife. The case against Tokareva was closed due to her death. Arefyev received a two-year suspended sentence for arson.

Scammers try to isolate victims, exerting pressure and using intimidation

Typical comments under news reports about arrests for arson committed under the influence of scammers include: “They should be sent away for two or three years just for being so stupid,” “I think they’re simply lying and were paid to do it. Then they play the fool in front of the investigator,” “Take phones away from such idiots so neither they nor anyone else can call them,” “Human stupidity is simply limitless!”, “I can’t understand how someone with a higher education could even think of doing something like that?!”

We analysed the texts of 45 published verdicts against scam victims. 24 cases contain detailed accounts of the defendants’ testimony. This allows us to understand precisely how phone scammers coerced them into setting fire to military enlistment offices, bank branches, and cars.

First of all, the scammers present themselves as figures of authority: a bank or tax official, a police officer, an investigator, or an FSB operative. For calls on regular phone lines, they use number spoofing technology; in messaging apps, they use appropriate names (one ruling mentions an account with the “nickname GSU GU MVD of Russia,” or Main Investigation Department of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs) and use emblems of law enforcement agencies as profile pictures. In one case, the caller introduced himself as the head of the investigative department for the Voroshilovsky district of Volgograd and suggested that the woman search for his name and number on Yandex, Russia’s most popular search engine. Victims are sent forged IDs and other documents, supposedly confirming the scammers’ claims (notifications from banks, loan agreements, receipts, and so on).

Scammers convince their victims that their money is in danger. Only the details change from case to case. We encountered the following variations: strangers have obtained the victim’s personal data and want to take out a loan in their name; bank employees have sold data to scammers; bank employees themselves have stolen the money and are sending it to Ukraine.

The manipulators then explain to the victim how they can save their savings or avoid financial losses, thus positioning themselves as rescuers. The victim now believes they are working together. They are offered to transfer savings to “safe accounts”, then to take out loans and microloans, supposedly so that the money does not fall into the hands of scammers. The amount of financial damage suffered by the victim depends on how much savings they have and how readily banks grant them loans.

In at least one case, the victim did not transfer any money to the scammers but still set fire to a military enlistment office. This was the case of Tuaita Shamsudinova. Divorced, she moved with her young son to Tver in May 2022, worked unofficially, and rented a room for 8,000 roubles (less than $80) a month. In August 2023, she received a call from “Sberbank” and was told to take out a 300,000-rouble (less than $3,000) loan in the app to save her money from scammers; her application was immediately rejected.

Not everyone who loses money is willing to continue communicating with the scammers. Most often, the conversation ends there: the victim is left without savings, with loans and debts.

How, and above all why, scammers choose potential arsonists is not entirely clear. According to the results of international investigations, fraudulent call centres in Ukraine are primarily a large-scale business. On whose initiative and under what conditions these call centres entered the war, and how strong the patriotic motivation of their employees is, remains unknown. The Ukrainian authorities publicly distance themselves from the campaign of phone attacks. The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office has claimed that the scammers are financed by “organisations connected with the Kyiv regime”, while the deputy chairman of Sberbank’s management board, Stanislav Kuznetsov, on the contrary, said that they transfer part of the stolen money—about 40%—to the needs of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The stories that scammers tell victims to convince them to commit arson are similar: wrongdoers who rob ordinary people are holed up in a certain place; an operation is being prepared to apprehend them; the security forces need help. The victim is assured that in doing so, they will fulfil their civic duty and do a good deed—help other victims—and, of course, get their savings back.

It is evident that manipulators exploit the victim’s conformity, loyalty, and eagerness to comply with demands from an authority figure or someone pretending to be one. Notably, among the convicted scam arsonists, none had a clear anti-war stance. Instead, their character references often included phrases such as: “is a patriot of their homeland, supports the President,” “supported the course of the President of the Russian Federation on the denazification of Ukraine,” “never expressed dissatisfaction with the ongoing ‘special military operation’.”

The details of the “secret special operation” narrative may change depending on the circumstances. We found these variations: the special services have located a car with money that scammers stole from relatives of participants in the “special military operation”; a meeting of military personnel who want to carry out a terrorist attack is taking place in the military enlistment office; the military commissar and his subordinates, who are dividing money obtained through fraud, are “located” in the military enlistment office; the scammers work in the bank itself and deceive clients; a dishonest Sberbank employee is hiding in the military enlistment office. The assistance to the security forces consists of “creating noise”, “causing panic”, “blocking the door”, or “giving a signal”.

A rather unique story was told to 52-year-old sailor Eduard Ovcharenko from Nakhodka in the Far East. The bank’s system supposedly “cannot cancel the loan” because it is set to send this data to the military enlistment office. There, he might be asked to participate in the “special military operation” in Ukraine to repay the loan, as he lacks funds. Everything is not so simple with the military enlistment office either: each evening, individuals in civilian attire arrive, and they are replaced by others in the morning. Security forces suspect these might be “scammers operating under the guise of the military enlistment office.”

The sailor had doubts, and then he was sent “a photo of a document according to which he was appointed to perform a special task of state importance by order of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation”; the plan was developed personally by the head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin. The photo convinced Ovcharenko—he agreed to carry out the “task” and set fire to the military enlistment office. Other victims mentioned similar documents.

People who have believed the “security official’s” voice on the phone are often difficult to stop.

49-year-old cleaner Elena Degtereva from Komsomolsk-on-Amur made Molotov cocktails in front of her son, who tried to stop her: “He started saying that he wouldn’t let her go anywhere, stood in her way, and she pushed him away. Her son claimed that these were fraudsters, but she didn’t believe her son; she believed that she was carrying out an assignment from an FSB officer.”

Colleagues of 55-year-old clerk Zhanna Romanovskaya from Vladimir also failed to prevent the arson. She borrowed money from several colleagues and did not return it on time; they asked their boss to talk to Romanovskaya. The court ruling contains a retelling of his testimony: “She said that everything was under control, that her financial issue would be resolved by the end of the week, and she would return all the money. She said that she was working with the FSB, that a gang would be detained and her money would be returned to her, that she had a separate communication channel, that she had signed a non-disclosure agreement with FSB officers and asked him not to tell anyone about it. He realised that she had been deceived by fraudsters and told her about it. She did not believe him and said that they were indeed FSB officers.”

Sometimes, before the arson, scammers try to intimidate the victim as much as possible. For example, one man from Berdsk was told that “about 8 million roubles had passed through his accounts in favour of the Armed Forces of Ukraine”, that a case of treason had been opened against him, and that the materials were located in the military enlistment office. Another woman was threatened with a search.

If the victim tries to resist the suggestion, the scammers may resort to outright threats. Vladimir Vaitzel from the Sverdlovsk region found the story about servicemen preparing a terrorist attack not very convincing—and he refused to set fire to the military enlistment office. Then the “FSB officer” said that he had many opportunities to make “life sweet” for his loved ones and that Vaitzel’s family would face trouble.

According to testimonies of defendants in arson cases, the main strategy for successful deception involves isolating the victim and maintaining continuous influence. Many arsonists mentioned that the scammers initially instructed them not to discuss the situation with anyone. Some were even told not to use the internet or were compelled to sign a “non-disclosure agreement of state secrets,” with the threat of a criminal case for any breach.

Victims are usually contacted by not one, but several manipulators. Their persistence is impressive: one court ruling states that over nine days, an 82-year-old pensioner from Perm spoke with scammers via Viber no less than 155 times. Sometimes, the perpetrators gain remote access to the victim’s device using specialist software—one ruling, for example, mentions the program RustDesk.

Immediately before the arson, the scammers maintain constant contact with the deceived victim—apparently, out of fear that they might change their mind at the last moment.

Before the attack, scammers often ask the victim to position their phone with the camera on so they can monitor the arson. Whether they keep these videos for their own records is unclear; such footage has not been publicly released.

Sometimes, scammers remain in contact even after the victim’s arrest and argue with the actual police officers. “If you don’t let Lena go now, I’ll set you on fire tomorrow, ten people will come!” threatened a man who persuaded Elena Degtereva from Komsomolsk-on-Amur to set fire to the military enlistment office.

Another woman, who in June 2023 was forced to detonate Joker fireworks in a Sberbank office and a Magnit supermarket in Saransk, recounted that her interlocutor laughed during the “salute”. Tuaita Shamsudinova from Tver was persuaded to “make a small fire” at the military enlistment office to pay off loans (which she did not have). She quickly realised that she had been deceived and began to shame her interlocutor. He replied: “The police are already looking for you. I’m a scammer.”

Scam victims, not the scammers, are prosecuted for arson—as Russian authorities can’t apprehend the perpetrators

Lyubov Shulina, a 73-year-old pensioner who poured flammable liquid on the porch of a military enlistment office, was facing “difficult life circumstances” and was subjected to “psychological coercion”, her lawyer argued. However, Judge Tatiana Popova of the Pervouralsk court in the Sverdlovsk region rejected the defence’s arguments.

In her view, although the pensioner was recognised as a victim in a case of theft and had “temporary financial difficulties,” this could not be considered “difficult life circumstances.” After all, she had filed a report with the police about the scammers, and therefore had “exercised her right to protect her violated rights”. Furthermore, the judge pointed out, the pensioner’s son, whom she supports, could have found a job, therefore her “financial difficulties could obviously have been resolved in another way”. As a result, Shulina received an 18-month suspended sentence.

The defence’s argument about psychological coercion—that the pensioner “had been receiving calls for a long time from unidentified individuals who convinced her that she was participating in a secret operation”—was dismissed by the judge without explanation.

We analysed 45 published verdicts from first-instance courts in cases of arson committed under the influence of scammers. Here’s what we found:

• Judges unequivocally perceive arson as a deliberate crime and see malicious intent in the actions of scam victims. The majority of them (40) were convicted under the article on intentional destruction or damage to property (Article 167 of the Criminal Code); the rest were charged with hooliganism (Article 213).
• 40 of the rulings mention unidentified individuals who contacted the defendant by phone or in a messaging app. In 27 cases, it is stated that the case against the unknown individuals has been separated into different proceedings.
• Five rulings made no mention of the influence of scammers. According to the texts of the verdicts, five people spontaneously, without any apparent reason, developed criminal intent and attacked banks and military enlistment offices, “expressing their blatant disregard for generally accepted norms of morality and ethics”, “demonstrating their permissiveness” and “grossly violating public order”. However, additional information from the media allows us to believe that in all these cases the convicted individuals were manipulated by scammers.

• In 23 of the 45 cases, the defendants, according to the judges’ interpretation, acted in collusion with the scammers who had robbed them. Here’s a typical description of their interaction from a verdict: “The accomplices were assigned criminal roles, according to which an unidentified person directed Kholyuseva’s actions in the execution of a joint criminal intent, and the latter, in turn, was to strictly follow them.” At the same time, in four cases, the judges disagreed with the investigators’ version and excluded “a group of persons” from the charges.
• In most rulings (26), judges noted that unidentified persons deceived the defendant to force them to commit arson. They “deliberately misled”, provided “deliberately false information”, “convinced”, “persuaded”, “incited”, invented various “deceptive pretexts”, sought to “gain trust”, “instigated” and “subjected [them] to manipulative influences”. However, the fact that a person was deceived does not mean that they were not in collusion with their manipulators—this is the view held by judges in 11 verdicts. They simultaneously mention both deception and collusion.
• Defendants tend to agree with the investigators’ version, even if it contradicts their own testimony. In 39 cases, the defendants fully confessed their guilt, in five—partially, in one case this information is not in the ruling. 17 people agreed to a special procedure, their cases were considered by the courts without examination of evidence. Only eight verdicts were appealed, one case reached the court of cassation (the prosecution was dissatisfied with procedural violations).
• In rare cases, lawyers tried to point to the psychological coercion to which their clients were subjected. This is one of the mitigating circumstances listed in Article 61 of the Criminal Code. In two cases, including the case of Lyubov Shulina, the judges did not see coercion. In another case, the judge took psychological coercion into account as a mitigating circumstance along with “providing charitable assistance to fighters in the zone of the ‘special military operation’.”

Phone scammers drive record number of election interference cases in 2024

“She was crying, he started telling her that if she didn’t do it, she would be complicit with the criminals,” a judge recounted the testimony of 48-year-old Olga Gulyaeva from the Altai village of Maima. During the presidential elections, she poured a mixture of petrol and zelenka, a brilliant green dye commonly used as antiseptic in Russia, into a ballot box. A “police lieutenant Vladimir Gennadyevich” directed the woman’s actions.

To protect her money from scammers, Gulyaeva, at his insistence, transferred 105,000 roubles (just over $1,000) to a “safe” account. Then the “lieutenant” instructed her to take out a loan, but her applications were rejected everywhere. The man posing as a police officer then told her that she needed to catch a fraudster from the electoral commission who was “allegedly supposed to transfer ballots to another candidate”. Setting fire to the ballot box would be a signal, and the fraudster would be detained, he said. Gulyaeva tried to refuse, but “Vladimir Gennadyevich” resorted to threats and categorically forbade her from mentioning their conversations. She said nothing even to her husband, “since she did not have a trusting relationship with him”.

In March 2024, during the three-day presidential election, Russians, in front of numerous witnesses and under surveillance cameras, seemingly mesmerised, poured zelenka into ballot boxes, set fire to voting booths, and detonated fireworks at polling stations. Mediazona counted at least 47 such attacks in 30 regions. 25 cases under the rarely used article on obstructing elections (Article 141 of the Criminal Code) have already gone to court.

We know the verdicts in 24 cases. Most often, the defendants received suspended sentences (10 cases), followed by fines (5). Three people received custodial sentences. Less common punishments included: compulsory labour (3), forced labour (1), and corrective labour (1). One case was terminated with the imposition of a judicial fine.

The harshest punishment—a year and a half in a penal colony—was given to 21-year-old Alexandra Karaseva from St Petersburg. She threw a Molotov cocktail at the wall of a school where polling stations were located. The woman fully confessed her guilt. The court rejected the defence’s arguments about her “difficult life and psychological situation”, stating that such circumstances “cannot serve as an excuse for committing a crime directed against the foundations of the state”.

According to Mediazona’s data, in the previous 15 years, from 2008 to 2023, at least 54 cases under Article 141 of the Criminal Code were filed in Russian courts. In 2024 alone—at least 25 cases, all of them related to attacks organised by phone scammers.

Verdicts have already been published in 21 of these cases. We studied them and concluded that phone scammers used the same schemes and methods of persuasion as in the arson attacks on military enlistment offices—with the difference that they now invented explanations for why the victim should attack a polling station.

The defendants’ testimony is recounted in some detail in only seven verdicts. We encountered the following versions: “an operation is underway throughout Russia to identify fraudsters”, “a special operation is being conducted jointly with the FSB to identify fake ballots”, it is necessary to “destroy falsified ballots.”

Unidentified individuals are mentioned in 20 verdicts; in half of them, it is stated that the case against the unknown individuals has been separated into separate proceedings.

The case of 32-year-old Ainur Amanbaeva from the Volgograd region stands out against the general background. According to the verdict, she “learned through the WhatsApp messenger about the opportunity to earn 30,000 roubles” by pouring zelenka into a ballot box. Scammers are not mentioned in this verdict, while the judge recognised psychological coercion as a mitigating circumstance.

According to the judges, 14 people acted in collusion with phone scammers, 12 were deceived by them. However, these are not mutually exclusive. For example, this is how Judge Ksenia Mamolya of the Kuraginsky District Court of the Krasnoyarsk krai described the case of 47-year-old Natalya Andriyanova: the woman, “unaware of the criminal intent” of her accomplice, at his direction bought a can of paint and “due to her gullibility”, “fully aware that <…> the actions are clearly criminal in nature, for mercenary motives, wishing to illegally return her stolen funds” agreed to attack a polling station. “Psychological coercion due to material dependence” was recognised as a mitigating circumstance. “An unidentified person, by means of blackmail, forced her to commit the specified crime, since her will was suppressed by the unlawful actions of the accomplice,” the judge stated.

Judges saw mercenary motives in the actions of 10 defendants. This usually implies a desire to return the money stolen by scammers. In verdicts under Article 141, the formulation “for mercenary motives” for some reason occurs significantly more often than in cases of attacks not related to elections (five cases out of 45).

Mostly, judges acknowledge that the crimes were committed at the instigation of “unidentified individuals”: they, “realising that committing a crime alone is difficult”, developed and used “a system of contactless recruitment of perpetrators”, “incited”, persuaded, and deceived.

In the case of 70-year-old pensioner Tatyana Petrukhina, Judge Vladimir Kuznetsov of the Lyublinsky Court of Moscow came to a diametrically opposite conclusion. In his opinion, the idea to interfere with the elections came to the pensioner herself, however, “fully aware that she” would not be able to do this “single-handedly”, Petrukhina “entered into a criminal conspiracy with unidentified accomplices”.

She, like most of the defendants, confessed guilt. According to the verdicts studied by Mediazona, all defendants confessed guilt, three of them—partially. Thirteen people, including Petrukhina, made a deal with the investigators. Only three verdicts were appealed.

Text and data collection: Olga Romashova

Infographics: Mediazona data team

Editors: Maria Klimova, Dmitry Tkachev