Petersburg officials reject compensation requests from 15 victims in April's subway bombing

A government committee in St. Petersburg has refused to pay compensation to 15 people injured in a subway bombing on April 3, earlier this year. According to the committee’s official report, medical examiners concluded that the 15 victims in question suffered no harm in the attack.

Of the 82 individuals who petitioned the state for compensation, only 67 requests were satisfied, resulting in the total payment of 46 million rubles ($778,160) from the state and municipal budgets. Relatives of the 15 victims killed in the bombing received the lion’s share of this money: 30 million rubles ($507,300).

In its report, the committee states that it isn’t responsible for the medical examinations that determined whether applicants qualified as victims due compensation.

• A suicide bomber killed 15 people and injured almost 90 on April 3, 2017, when he detonated an explosive vest aboard a St. Petersburg subway train. Some people caught in the blast later had trouble convincing medical experts that they suffered injuries in the attack. Some victims told Meduza that it was especially difficult to establish a medical record of psychological damage.