Press Release, 10.08.2021

Photo by Dmity Baltrukov

On 4 August, an explosion occurred on the porch of the municipal council of the Smolninskoye municipality in St.Petersburg. The explosion happened during the council meeting. According to a number of media, Georgy Sklyadnev, an employee of the Smolninskoe municipal administration, told the Centre for Combating Extremism that this explosion was arranged by order of Grigory Rankov, the current head of the municipality.

As a result of the explosion, Yabloko municipal deputy Dmitry Palyuga was diagnosed with neuritis of the auditory nerve and barotrauma of the left ear. Deputy Pavel Bezumov received a closed craniocerebral injury, barotrauma of the right ear, retracted eardrums and dysfunction of the auditory tube on both sides. He was taken to the Mariinsky Hospital. Deputy Elena Mishkinis was diagnosed with otalgia and contusion of the left auditory nerve. All the three are on outpatient treatment.

Municipal deputies believe that this explosion was not just an attempt to disrupt the meeting, but an attempted murder. Earlier, Grigory Rankov posted a video on Instagram, where he shoots with a Kalashnikov assault rifle. He signed his post as follows: “in a short line, 12 can be picked off at once, and a mandate will not help!” There were precisely 12 opposition deputies in the municipal council of the Smolninskoe municipal district who demanded Rankov’s resignation.

“It was another threat to stop us coming to the council meetings. The head is seeking the dissolution of the council, for this he needs us not to go to the meetings and stop defending ourselves in the courts. I believe this explosion is a real murder threat. Next time, Mr. Rankov and his subordinates may add damage agents to the explosives,” Dmitry Baltrukov, deputy of the Smolninskoe Municipal Council from the Yabloko party, said.

It should be noted that in the 2019 municipal elections, deputies from Yabloko received seven out of 20 mandates in the municipal council. Teaming up with other opposition candidates, they formed a coalition of 12 deputies. However, this is not enough to elect a new head of the council, since eight deputies block the council’s work. Now the post of the head of the municipality is occupied by Grigory Rankov, the former Chairman of the municipal council, who after the 2019 elections lost his mandate. Rankov does not convene meetings of the municipal council and refuses to let the deputies into the building under the pretext of COVID restrictions.