Press Release, 26.03.2024

Photo: Maxim Kruglov / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

On 27 March, deputies of the Moscow City Duma will hear a report from Oleg Baranov, head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the city of Moscow, on police activities in 2023. In addition, Baranov will answer questions sent by all factions of the Moscow City Duma. Yabloko will ask Baranov to comment on the inaction of the police when “The Last Address” signs commemorating the victims of repression of the Soviet period disappeared from Moscow houses, the illegal demands of migration department when processing passports for travel abroad for Russian citizens, as well as the history of the detention and beating of a young man by Moscow police. The questions will be voiced at a meeting of the Moscow City Duma by the leader of the Yabloko faction and Deputy Chairman of the party, Maxim Kruglov.

Muscovite Yelena Tkach addressed Moscow City Duma deputy from Yabloko Sergei Mitrokhin. Her son Vasily Tkach, a resident of the Presnensky district of Moscow, was detained in Sochi and escorted to Moscow by Moscow police officers. Vasily Tkach was told that he was detained based on the testimony of video cameras: he allegedly looked like a person who was wanted. Tkach did not know that he was a defendant in a criminal case and did not hide from anyone. During transportation, Tkach was severely beaten by Presnya police officers: his face was broken, a tooth was knocked out. The Yabloko faction will demand that the head of the Moscow police investigate what happened and take response measures.

Another question for Oleg Baranov concerns the illegal demands of employees of the Migration Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the citizens applying for international passports to present a military ID and a certificate from the military commissariat. The administrative regulations, approved by Order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia No. 186 dated 31 March, 2021, establish the procedure for obtaining an international passport for travel abroad. In particular, the regulations establish that a military ID is provided by the applicant only if it is available (clause 29.1.4), and a certificate from the military registration and enlistment office is provided on the applicant’s own initiative (clause 39.1). However, Yabloko deputies have repeatedly received requests from citizens, as the migration department employees refused to accept documents, requiring the applicants to independently contact the military commissariats to obtain a certificate. The faction will ask the chief of the Moscow police whether he considers it necessary to solve this problem of systemic violations of administrative regulations by his subordinates and what can be done for this.

The third question from Yabloko to the head of the Moscow police concerns the disappearance of memorial plaques of the “The Last Address” project from the walls of houses in Moscow. Numerous appeals from citizens and deputies to law enforcement agencies did not bring results. Police officers did not even consider it necessary to check the recordings of video cameras and did not see the disappearance of memorial plaques as an offense. Oleg Baranov will have to answer the question of how he assesses such inaction of his subordinates and whether he plans to take measures to find and punish those responsible for the disappearance of the “The Last Address” signs.

The meeting of the Moscow City Duma, when the head of the Moscow police will report to deputies and answer their questions, will begin on 27 March at 10 a.m. The meeting will be streamed on the Moscow City Duma YouTube channel.

It should be noted  that last year the head of the Yabloko faction in the Moscow City Duma, Maxim Kruglov, asked Oleg Baranov about the persecution of the Deputy Chairman of the Moscow branch of the Yabloko party, Andrei Morev, unlawful detentions of citizens based on the city’s facial recognition system, as well as about numerous cases of fraud associated with the deprivation of property rights on real estate. The Yabloko party faction did not support the report of the head of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs for Moscow, Oleg Baranov, and Maxim Kruglov noted in his speech that the Moscow police had finally become an instrument for political reprisals.