A military enlistment building in St Petersburg has been targeted in a sabotage attempt, marking the latest effort in a string of assaults on properties in Russian-controlled territory.
An unknown woman reportedly attempted to set fire to the building on Angliyskaya Naberezhnaya street on August 1.
In a clip shared on Telegram by a pro-Russian account, a woman can be seen approaching the building and placing a package by the door before setting it alight.
She fled the location before employees raced to extinguish the flames. Police are said to be still searching for the culprit.
It comes just days after a man rammed a vehicle into the gates of the military enlistment office courtyard before attempting to start a fire.
The man said that Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) had urged him to do so, reports claim.
Meanwhile, residents of the annexed territory of Crimea have been conducting “systematic” sabotage against Russian bases on the peninsula.
According to a Ukrainian military intelligence report on August 1, the Russian military bases were targeted with Molotov cocktails in an attack that prompted Moscow to bolster its surveillance of the area.
The Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) has reported that clashes between the pro-Ukrainian population and the Russian occupation have become more frequent in recent weeks.
Ukraine’s Armed Forces have also targeted the peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014.
They claimed responsibility for strikes at two bridges – one over the Chonhar Strait, and the Crimean Bridge over the Kerch Strait.
Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said Ukraine will keep aiming for targets in Russian-occupied Crimea to devastate Russian troops’ ability to fight and “help save the lives of Ukrainians”.
Natalia Humeniuk, Ukraine’s Southern Command spokesperson, said the bridge attacks created a logistical nightmare for the Russian army.
It has massively slowed down the pace at which they can replenish warehouses with weapons equipment, sparking “shell hunger”, she said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned Putin that Ukraine has Crimea in its sights.
He said his troops can retake the peninsula “soon”, but failed to provide a specific time frame.
Meanwhile, a skyscraper housing Russian government offices was hit for the second time in two days on Tuesday night in fresh drone attacks on Moscow.
The damaged building houses teams from Russia’s ministry of economic development, the digital ministry, and the ministry of industry and trade.
No one was injured in the skyscraper attack, which began in the dead of night when a huge explosion ripped through the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation.
It comes just days after Ukrainian drones struck two administrative buildings in the Moskva-Citi business district, according to Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin over the weekend.
Zelensky said attacks on Russian territory are “inevitable, natural and absolutely fair process” of the conflict and added that “the war is returning to the territory of Russia”.
He also claimed Putin “will not survive” the war and that he could be dead within 10 years.
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