They want to turn the Russian Red Cross into a state organization

The Russian Red Cross (RKK) is planned to be transformed from a public organization into a state one.

Currently, an interdepartmental working group is finalizing a bill that should change the status of the organization, Kommersant writes . The document was written back in 2015 by a group of State Duma deputies. According to it, the President of the Russian Federation will appoint the board of trustees of the RKK, and the members of the board will have to elect its president. At the same time, the Ministry of Health will be the curator of the organization. The RKK must remain a member of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.

Now the RKK operates within the framework of the legislation on public associations. Kommersant notes that opponents of the transformation believe that the RKK will lose its independence and be excluded from the international movement. At the same time, the International Federation of Red Cross Societies is not against more intelligible legislative regulation of the organization's work in the Russian Federation "subject to the principles of neutrality, independence and impartiality."

The publication also recalls the claims of the Russian authorities against the RKK, for example, in 2006 the organization was accused of not spending more than 48.6 million rubles for the intended purpose, collected by the victims of the terrorist attack in Beslan in 2004. Also, the Kemerovo branch of the RKK has not yet announced how it will distribute 126 million rubles, which came as donations to the victims in the Zimnyaya Vishnya shopping center.

The International Committee of the Red Cross was founded in 1863 in Geneva. It is a humanitarian organization based on the principles of neutrality and impartiality.