The Sovetsky District Court of Volgograd sentenced 30-year-old Russian Denis Serdyuk to four years in a penal colony for setting fire to a military registration and enlistment office, he was found guilty under part 2 of article 167 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Intentional destruction or damage to property” and part 2 of article 213 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Hooliganism”. According to the Caucasian Knot publication, referring to its correspondent from the courtroom, Serdyuk was also ordered to pay damages to the Defense Ministry in the amount of 923,229 rubles 60 kopecks.
The laptop confiscated from Serdyuk for 69,000 rubles will be taken into account as compensation for harm. The investigation previously estimated the damage from arson at one million 22 thousand rubles. Of these, Serdyuk has already reimbursed 100 thousand rubles. The prosecutor asked Serdyuk to be sentenced to 4 years and 5 months in prison, counting each day of his stay in the pre-trial detention center for one and a half days of the term.
Serdyuk was detained in Volgograd on the night of May 15, 2022, while trying to set fire to the building of the military commissariat for Sovietsky, Voroshilovsky and Kirovsky districts. In court, he pleaded guilty, explaining that he sought to express his civic position and "stop the fighting", but now regrets the "impulsive act."
In Russia, in different regions, military enlistment offices or administrative buildings have been set on fire since the beginning of the announcement of “partial” mobilization. So the citizens wanted to express their disagreement with the war and destroy some of the data on the conscripts who are sent to war in Ukraine. Arson continued in 2023, detaining everyone from teenagers to pensioners. Earlier, a 70-year-old Russian was sentenced to compulsory treatment in a psychiatric clinic for setting fire to a military registration and enlistment office. At the end of January, a court sentenced Russian Vladislav Borisenko to 12 years in prison for setting fire to a military enlistment office in Nizhnevartovsk. He was the first person to be convicted of setting fire to a military registration and enlistment office under an article on "terrorism". In just a year, at least 112 people in the Russian Federation were persecuted for setting fire to military registration and enlistment offices, partisan actions on railways, and other anti-war actions.