The Yabloko Party’s Anti-Corruption Policy Centre indicated that six deputies and senators may have vested interests in the adoption of the law

Press Release, 18.10.2023

Photo by unsplash.com

Chairman of the Yabloko party Nikolai Rybakov demanded that the State Duma and the Federation Council conduct a conflict of interest check on the co-authors of the bill on clear cut of forests in the Lake Baikal area (No. 387575-8) and take liability measures, including depriving them of their mandates. We are talking about senators Sergei Brilka and Andrei Chernyshov, as well as State Duma deputies Alexander Yakubovsky, Sergei Tena, Anton Krasnoshtanov and Viktor Pinsky. Yabloko’s Anti-Corruption Policy Centre also developed the concept of a law on lobbying and proposes to label deputies and senators involved in promoting the interests of individuals or corporations as “lobbying agents”.

According to several investigative reports, the lawmakers and their families have close ties to companies with direct commercial interests in the areas covered by Bill No 387575-8, including the logging, construction, tourism, and restaurants and catering. The Anti-Corruption Policy Centre of the Yabloko party continued its colleagues’ investigations and revealed even more details. At least six legislators and their families out of the 21 co-authors of the amendments are surrounded by businesses in construction, tourism and logging.

“The presence of a profile business in the Senator [Andrei Chernyshov]’s circle already creates a conflict of interests. The proposed bill is potentially beneficial to companies connected with the co-authors of the  initiative. The case of illegal logging of the Baikal forest by one of the companies indirectly associated with Sergei Brilka is indicative here. This and other connections in the case clearly indicate that initiatives can be lobbied in the selfish interests of the parliamentarians,” Alexei Karnaukhov, head of the Yabloko’s Anti-Corruption Policy Centre, notes.

You can find out more about who else benefits from cutting forests in the Lake Baikal area in the investigation by Yabloko’s Anti-Corruption Policy Centre.

It should be noted in June 2023, a group of 21 deputies and senators introduced amendments to the federal law “On the Protection of Lake Baikal” to the State Duma with a proposal to allow cutting of forests in the central ecological zone of Lake Baikal, despite the fact that it is a natural area with a special protective status. Now any construction and resource extraction, including timber, are restricted there. The bill was adopted in the first reading. At the beginning of October, it was reported that the Government of the Russian Federation demanded that, for the second reading, the bill be brought into compliance with the Forestry Code of the Russian Federation, which prohibits clear-cutting. However, the government did not indicate how exactly the legislator should do this.