“Relay War”: statistics, causes and consequences

One of the aspects of the “hybrid” actions of Russia’s opponents during the special military operation in Ukraine was the organization of mass arson attacks on railway relay cabinets. Based on the criminological statistics of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs and a survey of transport police officers (N = 1710), a description of those who committed these crimes, their causes and consequences is given. An analysis of data on arson attacks on relay cabinets showed the legitimacy of their interpretation in the context of not so much a military confrontation as an “information war”. Although in 2023 the frequency of such crimes was relatively high, most of the surveyed transport police officers testified that these arson attacks had virtually no effect on the crime situation. Departmental statistics of the Ministry of Internal Affairs show a high (about 80%) detection rate of such crimes and a decline in their number in 2024 (possibly under the influence of information about harsh sentences in solved criminal cases). Although among those convicted in cases of arson of cabinets there are Russians who committed crimes for ideological reasons, they are a minority. Typical (in about ¾ of the crimes) arsonists are young and/or poor, who committed the crime for the sake of the payment promised to them by “third parties”. The article also examines the opinions of police officers on ways to improve the fight against such crimes, which lead to more general problems of the development of the Russian police as a social organization.