Press Release, 15.04.2024

Photo by Iya Boronina

A court in Izhevsk fined an official of the Ministry of Education of Udmurtia for ignoring an official inquiry from the Chair of the Yabloko branch in Udmurtia, Iya Boronina. Boronina’s inquiry to the ministry concerned ensuring anti-terrorist and security measures in schools.

The leader of the Udmurtian Yabloko was preparing amendments to the regional budget for the State Council. The Ministry of Education did not provide the requested information on time. After re-applying, Boronina received a response from the ministry, but it contained insufficient information. A case of administrative offense against a government official was opened by the regional public prosecutor’s office based on Boronina’s complaint. Earlier, the Minister of Culture of Udmurtia, Vladimir Solovyov, was fined under the same Article 5.59 of the Code of Administrative Offenses – he also did not provide Iya Boronina with the information necessary to prepare amendments to the budget.

It should be noted that Iya Boronina’s request to the Ministry of Education of Udmurtia concerned information about the means necessary to ensure anti-terrorist security of educational institutions of the republic.

It is worth noting that the response from the Ministry of Education dated January 2024 indicated that the department sent a budget request for anti-terrorism funds for 2024-2026 in the amount of 2.8 billion roubles. Iya Boronina, in an explanatory note to the amendments sent to the State Council, as well as in a report at the parliamentary session, stated that the need to ensure anti-terrorism security is approximately 3.6 billion rubles (which is confirmed by data from the Prosecutor’s Office).

The region’s budget allocates 1.6 billion roubles to ensure anti-terrorist security of educational institutions. Thus, based on the available data, the underfunding of this expense item is about 2 billion roubles.