A military court in Russia's Saint Petersburg sentenced a man to eight years on terrorism and treason charges on Thursday, January 18, for plotting to burn down an army recruitment building in 2022. Russia saw a spate of attacks on draft offices in the autumn of 2022 after President Vladimir Putin announced a controversial "partial mobilization" drive, calling up more than 300,000 men to fight in Ukraine.
The court said Maxim Asriyan, a nurse who worked in Saint Petersburg, planned to throw a homemade Molotov cocktail at a military enlistment building in the city, but changed his mind at the last second. In a statement, it said he was motivated by "extremist views" and was a supporter of the Ukrainian armed forces.
Asriyan struck a plea deal, admitting that he took a Molotov cocktail to the building in the early hours of 1 October 2022 but did not go through with the attack. He will serve two and a half years in prison, with the rest of the eight-year sentence in a high-security penal colony, the court said.
Prosecutors claimed he backed down from his arson plan after he saw a heavy security presence and feared he would be caught or identified. Asriyan said he changed his mind on the spot because he did not want to hurt people working in the building, according to the AvtoZak Live media outlet, which tracks Russia's judicial system.
He was convicted on terrorism and treason charges – laws widely used by Russian prosecutors to target those who have protested its military campaign on Ukraine. The partial mobilization order triggered hundreds of thousands of young Russian men to flee the country to avoid being called up to fight in Ukraine.