Penza police call reports of forced recruitment raids ‘false’ but concede some men may have posed as officers

Filed 2h ago · Via Meduza · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Meissen Manufactory · CC0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Penza's Interior Ministry branch called reports of forced-recruitment raids “untrue,” while separately conceding it cannot rule out that people impersonating police officers have been carrying them out, and says it is investigating. Residents have reported since mid-June that men are being seized off the streets, pressured into signing military contracts, and sent to fight in Ukraine, while authorities deny anyone has been forcibly deployed to the front.

The same statement complained that local residents are “increasingly standing up for lawbreakers” by intervening to stop detentions, and warned that interfering with police carries serious legal consequences. The ministry did not explain how residents are meant to distinguish real detentions from impersonated ones if the raids themselves are also denied.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A denial that simultaneously admits impostor police might be the ones doing the abducting isn't reassurance, it's a confession with extra steps. If the raids are fake, the impersonators are oddly busy; if they're real, calling them false doesn't make them stop.

Source: Read the original at Meduza → Scored: Spy Glass · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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