Ruslan Zinin, who shot military commissar Alexander Eliseev in Ust-Ilimsk, wrote an open letter. It was handed over to ASTRA by his mother Marina Zinina. The letter was written on October 5, but Zinin asked that it be distributed only now.
In the letter, he talks about the motives of his act. According to the man, he lost his school friend in the war and was afraid of losing his brother:
“On that day, I really went to the draft board with the confidence that it was in my power to prevent my younger brother from being mobilized according to the agenda assigned to him the day before for the same day. I also, until the last moment, was firmly convinced that I would not cause any harm to anyone. I am categorically against violence from an early age, everyone who knows me closely can confirm this.
I also confess that to this day I am tormented by nightmares after I saw a posthumous photograph of my school friend, an 18-year-old boy, a conscript soldier, drafted in November 2021 and who died on March 22, in the early days of the SVO. Imagining for a moment that I would ever, God forbid, have to see my own person like this, I realized that I could not live on, knowing that I had done nothing to prevent this and was ready to throw myself under a tank with my bare hands for any of his brothers. I have three of them. Just so as not to see the grief and tears of relatives.
The summons came to the youngest of them, who had just recently returned from the army. I knew that he was a military driver, like myself by profession, and I knew for sure that military drivers were suicide bombers, so I did not waste time thinking when I saw how my grandmother met me at home in tears, saying that my brother tomorrow he leaves for the war. My protest was strongly rejected by the family, saying that the alternative was prison, they were intimidated. Then I realized that you can only rely on yourself. Everything happened too quickly, so I believe that I failed to protect myself and people from unforeseen circumstances. I consider everything that happened further in the building of the military registration and enlistment office to be the result of my fatal mistakes and a tragic combination of circumstances.
Zimin also writes about the conditions of detention. According to him, law enforcement officers did not use any torture against him, and he has no complaints against them. Zimin also apologized to the military commissar Eliseev and everyone "who was frightened by his actions."
Recall that the incident occurred on September 26. Zinin began to ask questions about the deceased friend to the speaker Eliseev, after which he took out a sawn-off shotgun and fired at him. On November 14, the military commissar was discharged from the hospital. Zinin is currently in jail. On November 22, in the Kiev court of Irkutsk, a trial will be held to extend his preventive measure.