A graduate student was arrested for setting fire to a museum – he was waiting to be congratulated by the FSB

A court in St. Petersburg arrested 25-year-old graduate student Alexei Hrybanov for arson at the museum. Ego is accused of hooliganism as part of a group of persons.

According to the investigation, on April 26, Grybanov, expressing “obvious disrespect for society on the grounds of political enmity”, doused the facade of the museum in Pushkin with flammable liquid, set it on fire and tried to hide.

The graduate student was detained a kilometer from the crime scene, writes “Fontanka”. According to the publication, during the interrogation, Grybanov said that he set fire to the museum after blackmail by telephone fraudsters. They convinced the graduate student that a loan was issued for him, and then – that he received a summons. Fraudsters offered to take revenge: set fire to the military enlistment office and the military enlistment office’s car.

Hrybanov refused to do this, but agreed to set fire to the museum located across the street from the Ministry of Defense facility. During the detention, writes “Fontanka”, the graduate student shouted a Ukrainian patriotic greeting and expected that after these “code words” he would be congratulated on a successful mission in the FSB.

According to Mediazona’s calculations, at least 17 similar stories have occurred since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Residents of Russia set fire to military enlistment offices and bank branches, not hiding from cameras and the police, and after being detained talk about phone scammers, debts and loans.

• After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, military enlistment offices, police departments, city administration buildings, and “United Russia” receptions began to be set on fire all over Russia. After the announcement of mobilization, the number of such attacks increased many times. At the moment, it is known about almost a hundred requests for arson.
• As a result of the fires, no one was killed or injured. At first, cases were considered under the criminal articles of damage to someone else’s property and hooliganism. The first sentence, in which the arson of the military enlistment office was qualified as a terrorist act, was handed down at the end of January 2023.