Ye… Super Fuck Russia n China n All

Well, it doesn’t make it easier to enlist. And it doesn’t target civilians. And it sends the message that there are folks operating in the area that have the means to do these things. No matter who it is.

I’ve read these stories multiple times now and I still don’t quite understand what’s happening.

That’s because it’s mostly lies and propaganda not aimed at you, but the Russian people.

Russians have been burning those offices for over a year, with it ramping up after people started getting forcefully recruited. Russia as always is trying to say it’s not “real russians” doing it, but people influenced by “the evil west”. It’s their standard strategy when it comes to pretty much any set back, ever. In this case it’s mostly blamed on “evil ukranian scammers”, so they can keep justifying the invasion and occupation.

Are you saying the story the Russian media is telling makes no sense? Because on that I agree, but it’s hard to understand if that’s what you mean, it’s just my best guess.

This kind of narrative, “Our enemies are weak willed patsies falling for phone scams and simultaneously dangerous and capable insurrectionists,” is typical of fascist propaganda. It’s Umberto Eco’s 8th feature of fascism: “By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”

If you’re wondering why people are really doing it:

It sends a very clear message: stop forcing children to die for your invasion.

Also, the offices exist to facilitate the process of enlistment, so it stands to reason that if they’re destroyed then that process will be slowed, even if just for a while.

People putting their lives on the line to resist imperialism aren’t going to hear much criticism from me.

I have two thoughts about this, and I’ll be the first to admit that I’m nowhere near qualified to say if either of them are even close to the mark.

The first, and probably more optimistic, is that they’re trying to find people who are sympathetic to the pro-ukrainian/anti-putin cause and giving them sort of a plausible deniability to act on those sympathies. That way if they get caught they can say “No of course not, I would never help Ukraine, I love the motherland, the man on the phone said this was good for Russia and that’s why I did it”

The second is that a lot of people out there are just plain stupid. When you listen to even regular run-of-the-mill phone scammers, people fall for some absolutely bullshit stuff, I really wouldn’t be too surprised if you could, with a little perseverance and choosing your words carefully, convince the same kind of people who think it’s perfectly reasonable that the IRS will take payments in the form of Roblox gift cards to go commit arson.

EDIT: those 2 thoughts are based on the assumption that these scammers actually exist, there is also of course, option 3- Russia’s lying or is dumb, there are no scammers doing this, the people doing this know full well what they’re doing, and either A- this is just the government trying to cover it up with a bullshit story about scammers convincing people to do it, or B- that’s the story the people doing this are giving and the Russian government is actually dumb enough to believe it.

Some arsonists claimed that they were following the “instructions of the FSB”

If the FSB tell you to do something, you do it.

It seems much more probable that russians just don’t want to be drafted. Of course Russia blames Ukraine, but it’s a pretty far out story to be pass even as fake news.

Anyway, even if it’s true, it doesn’t exactly put Russians in a good light, if they’re so incredibly dumb that they can be scammed into setting fire to military offices.

It’s a Russia-problem either way, and their reaction is to wave their arms around.