Translated material
Copper and lightning
A fire in the Ural reserve turned into a criminal case. How can this be related to the interests of industrialists?
In the Sverdlovsk region, the police opened a criminal case on the fact of the July fire in the reserve "Monozhkin Stone". The article “Violation of the regime of reserves that entailed causing significant damage” (Article 262 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - up to two years of correctional labor).
“Based on the results of supervisory activities and a survey of residents of a number of settlements, information indicating the occurrence of a fire in the forest due to stay in the reserve of citizens,” the prosecutor's office said.
According to the law, in the reserve, a person can only be with the permission of the leadership of the protected area and only on the allocated tourist routes. No bonfires and abandoned cigarette butts.
There are no defendants in the case yet, but it is clear that it can threaten the director of the reserve Anna Kvashnina and the head of the security department of the “Money Stone” Igor Kondratyeva.
The story would sound standardly (“the forest was not saved”), if not for two points:
Kvashnina has been conflicts for the past three years with one of the largest industrial holdings of the Sverdlovsk region-the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company. The UMMC is developing next to the reserve Novo-Samemurskoye field of copper-zinc ores. After the start of development, water in the seven Ural rivers became green, fish died in them. The director of the reserve, perhaps, is most active in all requires the industrial giant to comply with environmental legislation.
In July, the reasons for the fire were already studied by the North Ural Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Based on the results of the audit, a decision was made to refuse to institute criminal proceedings, because both the employees of the reserve and the firefighters said: the cause of the fire is lightning.
Two months later, for some reason, they decided to change the conclusions.
- The prosecutor's office claims to conduct a check on the facts set forth in the media. Allegedly, we are poorly guarding the reserve. Several publications regularly write about this, which are also regularly praised by the UMMC, ”says Anna Kvashnina. - One of the prosecutors surveyed is the former head of the reserve security department Nikolai Sukhomlinov. He gave comments to these publications [about the "incapacity" of the fire department of the reserve]. In 2018, he did not pass the medical board. And lost his job in the reserve. I took it painfully: I wrote a bunch of complaints to different departments. He even wrote that we “turn a blind eye” by hunting on the territory of the “Money Stone”. It turns out that he complained about himself: he was the main guard. On his complaints in the reserve, checks were held, including a prosecutor. As a result, the charges were not confirmed.
Kvashnina directly connects the criminal case with the conflict between the employees of the “Money Stone” and industrialists. And once again articulates: a lightning strike was the cause of the fire.
- We also have documents from Roshydromet that there was a thunderstorm on that day on that day. There is a bearing of a thunderstorm - a map of thunderclines. Moreover, the fire began in the remote section of the mountain: it was unlikely that anyone would go there to set fire. With the same effect, you can set fire to the forest much closer to settlements and paths. When we arrived at the place of fire, there were no traces of man.
More than a hundred people took part in the extinguishing of a fire in Konozhn Kamen. And now, of course, the police can find many thousands of traces there.
According to the interlocutor of Novaya Gazeta, in law enforcement agencies the case was instituted "on order". The task is to check the anthropogenic version again. At the same time, according to the source, there are no prospects to bring to justice the employees of the reserve.
-The plot of Article 262 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation provides that someone illegally entered the reserve and involuntarily caused damage to nature. In this case, he took arson. It is clear that these were not employees. If only because they are legally on the territory of the reserve. They could be attracted by another article. "Negligence". But for this you need to find the arsonist.
The head of the program for specially protected territories of the Russian branch of Greenpeace, Mikhail Krenindlin, says that Article 262 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation "almost never works."
“It provides for mandatory damage, while not establishing what significant damage is,” he says.
Craindlene emphasizes: the volunteers and employees of Greenpeace, who participated in the extinguishing, also believe that lightning was the cause of the fire.
“There is a feeling that they specially opened the case under an unpromising article in order to just wash the nerves of the reserve for the employees of the reserve,” he says.
The fire in the reserve "Monozhkin Stone" continued from July 17 to August 7. 120 hectares of forest were injured, while most of the stands remained alive. The damage caused by nature is estimated at 97,973 rubles. If the arsonist is found (and the intention of the crime is proved), the amount of damage (in accordance with the established coefficients) may increase to 24.4 million rubles.