Four activists of the Nashi movement were detained in the Tsagovsky forest for disobeying the police

Four people were detained on Monday in the Tsagovsky forest in Zhukovsky near Moscow for disobeying the police, said the head of the press service of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the Moscow Region, Evgeny Gildeev.

“Four people were detained in the Tsagovsky forest on Monday afternoon and taken to the police department to draw up reports for administrative violations under Article 19.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation (“Disobedience to the legal demands of a representative of the authorities”),” Gildeev said.

As an Interfax correspondent reports from the scene, the four detainees are activists of the Nashi youth movement.

On Monday, a group of activists arrived in the Tsagovsky forest, where they were demolishing a camp of citizens protesting against the construction of a new highway to Zhukovsky near Moscow through the forest area. That day, the workers loaded more than half of the camp’s belongings into the Gazelle and took them away in an unknown direction.

The camp is a fenced area with tourist tents, a wooden table, awnings, a fire, a samovar, as well as wooden shelves where food brought by city residents was stored.

The agency's source in law enforcement agencies said that on Monday afternoon, Gospozhnadzor employees came to the so-called defenders of the Tsagovsky forest, who, on the basis of a decree of the Moscow region authorities on a set of measures to prevent fires during the fire hazard period in natural areas, demanded the removal of two tents in which the forest defenders were located .

“The young people refused to do this, after which employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations called the police for help. Employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs arrived at the scene, after which work began on dismantling the tents,” said Interfax’s interlocutor.

Earlier, activists of the Nashi movement decided to support the defenders of the Tsagovsky forest. They initiated a dialogue with representatives of the local administration, but the initiative group and movement activists did not receive any answers at the meeting.

Residents of the town of Zhukovsky near Moscow have been protesting for several years against the cutting down of the Tsagovsky forest on the site where they are building an access road to the city from the M-5 Ural highway. The authorities promised to plant more than 30 hectares of new green space instead of the cut down 12 hectares of forest.

The last mass action on April 7, 2012, gathered, according to the organizers, 1.5 thousand people. It was attended by the leader of the movement “In Defense of the Khimki Forest” Evgenia Chirikova and State Duma deputy from “A Just Russia” Dmitry Gudkov.

On April 29, forest defenders blocked the path for dump trucks that were transporting soil. More than 300 people took part in the action, two were detained. As one of the activists reported, the detained young people are accused of disobeying police officers (Article 19.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation) and using violence against a representative of the authorities (Article 318 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), under which they could face up to 10 years in prison.