Zinin Ruslan Aleksandrovich

On September 26, 2022, in Ust-Ilimsk, Irkutsk Region, Ruslan Zinin, a timber truck driver, came to the local military registration and enlistment office and, shouting “Let's all go home now!”, shot military commissar Alexander Eliseev while he was giving a patriotic speech to conscripts. The wounded colonel was hospitalized in serious condition, and Zinin was detained. Two days later, on September 28, the Ust-Ilimsk court sent Ruslan Zinin to a pretrial detention center. Initially, Zinin was charged with attempting to take the life of a law enforcement officer and illegally acquiring a weapon. However, the charges did not correspond to Zinin's actions: a military commissar is not a law enforcement officer. In July 2023, the Investigative Committee reclassified the charges against the Irkutsk resident to committing a terrorist act that led to serious consequences, and the illegal manufacture and storage of weapons. Ruslan's motive was to prevent the mobilization of his younger brother, who had received a draft notice the day before. "Imagining for a moment that I would ever, God forbid, have to see my loved one like that, I realized that I would not be able to live knowing that I had done nothing to prevent it, and I was ready to throw myself under a tank with my bare hands for any of my brothers. I have three brothers. Just so I wouldn't have to see the grief and tears of my loved ones," Zinin explained. It is known that Ruslan had previously spoken out against the war and was also grieving the death of his childhood friend, who was serving in the military and was killed in the first days of the full-scale invasion. On January 19, 2024, a panel of three judges of the 1st Eastern District Military Court, chaired by Judge Valery Andrusov, sentenced Ruslan Zinin to 19 years in prison with a fine of 150,000 rubles and a year of restricted freedom at a hearing in Irkutsk. According to the court's decision, Zinin must serve the first seven years of his sentence in prison and the remainder in a strict regime colony. On July 30, 2024, the Military Court of Appeal increased Zinin's sentence to 20 years.