The 1st Western District Military Court in St. Petersburg sentenced 76-year-old local resident Galina Ivanova* to ten years in a general regime colony in the case of setting fire to a car parked near a military enlistment office after communicating with scammers, reported «Fontanka». This was exactly what the prosecution requested.
The court found the St. Petersburg woman guilty in the case of a «terrorist act» that caused significant property damage, and the pensioner was taken into custody in the courtroom.
On November 15, 2023, Ivanova came to the building of the military commissariat of the Leningrad region on the Fontanka River embankment, took a bottle with an incendiary mixture from her bag, poured it on the hood of the minibus, and set it on fire.
As «Fontanka» writes, the scammers guided the pensioner over the phone for a month and a half: hundreds of calls, dozens of voices. One of them claimed: he was an «FSB officer», and someone came to the bank with a fake power of attorney in her name. During this time, loans were taken out in the pensioner's name, and later she transferred more than half a million rubles to the scammers. In November 2023, the «intelligence officer» convinced her to throw a «Molotov cocktail» at the military enlistment office. Currently, the pensioner is considered a victim in the criminal fraud case.
According to the investigation, at the moment of the arson, the pensioner was talking on the phone with «FSB officers». When a minibus blocked her path, she told her interlocutors that she couldn't get closer to the building. They replied: «Burn the car».
During her arrest, she continued talking on the phone — the police officer took it from her. According to the investigation, during the arrest, she threatened to set herself and the people nearby on fire.
In January 2024, Galina Ivanova was added to the list of «terrorists and extremists» maintained by Rosfinmonitoring.
At the hearings, there were no relatives of the pensioner, as «Rotonda» writes, they stopped communicating with her. The woman's husband died a month after her arrest.
«It's complete absurdity — they judge and punish the victim. This is all to the scammers' advantage. Just think: this is exactly what they wanted. First, to rob the deceived old woman, then push her to commit a crime, and then shove her into prison. And let her die there. <...> It's clear that ten years in a colony for me is a death sentence. I won't survive even ten days there. Understand, I am a post-war child, a person shaped by the Soviet Union, we have trust in words like «state», «police» in our blood. We believed in all this sacredly, and now with our faith and ideals, this is what happens. You know what they told me: «The Motherland is asking you!» — Ivanova said in court.
The defense asked to acquit Ivanova, and she herself asked not to be sent to a colony due to heart diseases.
* Included in the list of «terrorists and extremists».
Photo: Rotonda