Urlashov under suspicion

In Yaroslavl in the evening of July 3, a picket took place in support of the arrested mayor Yevgeny Urlashov. Three young people went to the city hall building in T -shirts with

Member of the picket in support of the mayor of Yaroslavl Evgeny Urlashov

the inscription "Putin thief." One of the participants in their hands had a poster with the inscription "Freedom Urlashov." The picket participants said that they are representatives of the People’s Alliance. After some time, about 400 people gathered a few meters from this place, to which opposition activist Alexei Navalny invited on Twitter. All those who came were going to stand silently, but the reaction of the participants in the gathering caused the appearance of a deputy of the municipality Igor Blokhin, who is an opponent of Urlashov, and several of his supporters. In his hands he held a banner with the inscription "For a fair investigation."

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The police today came home to the mayor of Yaroslavl Evgeny Urlashov, his deputy Dmitry Donskov and spokesman Svetlana Efimova. In the apartment, the mayor, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, found 500 thousand dollars, and his press secretary at home - 200 thousand dollars.

At night, Urlashov was detained on suspicion of extortion on an especially large scale. According to the investigation, the mayor of Yaroslavl, his deputy Dmitry Donskov, the head of the municipal order agency Maxim Poikalainen and the mayor’s adviser Alexei Lopatin from December 2012 to July 2, 2013 were extorted with the director of the company "Radostroy" by Sergey Shmelev 14 million rubles from the funds transferred to his company to perform work. Shmeleva is a general contractor for cleaning Yaroslavl. In June of this year, representatives of the city’s city hall stated that they were unhappy with the quality of the work of "Prostroy", but a week ago the contract for the maintenance of the city’s road network was again extended. Another criminal case was instituted against the alleged intermediary-an unnamed 34-year-old resident of the Yaroslavl region.

After the detention, Yevgeny Urlashov told the news agency "Yarnovo" that his persecution is associated with "political events." Recently, a rally “against the party of crooks and thieves” was held in Yaroslavl, at which the mayor criticized the policies of the Governor of the Yaroslavl region Sergey Yastrebov and expressed the intention to take his post. Urlashov believes that the persecution against him is connected with the desire to weaken the position of the Civil Platform party in the upcoming elections to the Yaroslavl Regional Duma on September 8.

The mayor of Yaroslavl Evgeny Urlashov, after testing, was transferred to a temporary detention center before a preventive measure. He will probably spend two days there.

Evgeny Urlashov in the fall intended to head the list of the Civil Platform party in the elections to the regional Duma of the Yaroslavl region. The party does not believe in the economic background of the arrest of Urlashov, said Tatyana Kosobokova, spokesman for the party leader Mikhail Prokhorov:

- The Civil Platform party all night tried to get reliable data from law enforcement agencies about what happened and for what reason the legally chosen mayor of Yaroslavl was so harshly detained. We are trying to get information from two in the morning, but they do not give us information. Only by morning, Urlashov’s lawyers were allowed to familiarize themselves with the case file. Mikhail Prokhorov said that he considered what happened to the "demonstrative seizure of the mayor chosen by the people." According to Prokhorov, this is a blow to civic freedoms and freedoms of every resident of Russia. Whatever the authorities suspect Evgeny Urlashov, he is not a terrorist, is not on the federal wanted list. It is quite obvious that night masks with a person dragging a person out of the car are arranged for the sole purpose-to personally intimidate Eugene and his voters. He had to start working with them next week, as the party intended to nominate Urlashov and his entourage in the elections to the regional Duma of the Yaroslavl region. The Civil Platform will demand from law enforcement agencies a public explanation why such strict measures have been applied to the legally chosen head of the city, ”said Tatyana Kosobokova, spokeswoman Mikhail Prokhorova.

Political scientist Alexander Kynev is almost sure that the detention of Yevgeny Urlashov is connected with his political activity:

- Unfortunately, the practice has already developed in Russia that the mayors who won the elections not from the United Russia party immediately began troubles. And they had two trajectories of further life: either to join the party in power - for example, it happened in Irkutsk, where the mayor became a candidate from the Communist Party, or lose their position as a result of the initiation of various criminal cases. Often these matters then scattered, as they were sewn with white threads. Based on Russian experience, the situation in Yaroslavl is not at all amazing: the election campaign is going on, on September 8, elections to the regional Duma will be held. Evgeny Urlashov publicly stated that he would lead the list of the "Civil Platform". I think this is the main reason for his detention, ”says political scientist Alexander Kynev.

Evgeny Urlashov was elected head of Yaroslavl on April 1, 2012. Having acted as an independent candidate, he won the election of his main opponent - a representative of United Russia, Yakov Yakushev.