“I don’t want to go to the front”: desperate man sets himself on fire in Russia | News

The gruesome scene took place on Sunday in the city of Ryazan, about 200 kilometers from Moscow. According to the news website ‘Progorod62’, men are being recruited in that region for the partial military mobilization announced last week by President Vladimir Putin. A man is said to have set himself on fire around 3 p.m. near the central bus station.

A source at the emergency services told the banned Russian newspaper ‘Novaya Gazeta’ that the victim has burns on 90 percent of the body. When they took him away, he is said to have yelled, “I don’t want to go to the front.” Whether that is true is impossible to verify, but the images have been published online by media outlets such as ‘Novaja Gazeta‘ and ‘meduza‘, the news portal ‘YA62.ru‘ and the local news site ‘Ryazannews.ru‘.

They show how a man cuts the contents of a bottle over himself, sets himself on fire and then skips around in panic. After the flames were extinguished, the victim was taken to an ambulance. He is said to have received special oxygen treatment in the hospital.

Earlier, more stories surfaced of Russian men injuring themselves in the hope that they can avoid being sent to Ukraine. After the speech in which Putin announced the mobilization, according to Google Trends, the search query ‘How do I break my arm’ skyrocketed.