Yabloko deputy Anatoly Kivva, who exposed the fraud, appealed to the police

Press Release, 12.01.2021

Photo: Anatoly Kivva, deputy of the Council of Deputies of the Zaboryevskoye rural settlement. The Ryazan branch of Yabloko.

Irina Kopylova, head of the Zaboryevskoye rural settlement, falsified the decision of the Council of Deputies to increase her wage supplement. The forged decision was sent to the financial department, and according to this faked decision Kopylova illegally received more than 240,000 roubles at the end of 2020.

The forgery was revealed by Anatoly Kivva, deputy of the Council of Deputies of the Zaboryevskoye rural settlement from the Yabloko party. He turned to the police with a statement in which he demanded to bring those guilty of the fraud to criminal responsibility under of Article 160 Part 3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. This provision of the Criminal Code assumes responsibility for the appropriation or embezzlement of property entrusted to a person, committed by this person with the help of his/her official post. The responsibility for this crime envisages up to six years in prison. Irina Kopylova was nominated to her post by the pro-government United Russia party.

“One can argue about what salary the head of the settlement should have, but if the head does not agree with the decision of the Council of Deputies, she can give her arguments. There were no such arguments – it was unclear what the head accomplished for more than a year of work, the administration does not work with people at all, it tries to live separately from people. In such conditions, they decided to take a simple but very ridiculous path – they forged a document and wrote down a different amount. The stolen money is a large amount for the budget of the settlement,” Anatoly Kivva noted.

“Even elementary tasks have not been solved in the municipality. The Zaboryevskoye rural settlement is one of the largest in the Ryazan region, it contains a dozen of settlements, this is a suburb of Ryazan, there is expensive land, active cottage construction, but I have to carry firewood to Boriskovo, a remote village in which no one has ever seen a single administration representative”, the deputy added.

The Ryazan branch of Yabloko notes that in accordance with Article 34 of the Charter of the settlement, the Council of Deputies establishes monthly monetary remuneration for the head of the settlement, as well as other additional payments. Based on the decisions of the Council of Deputies, the monthly remuneration of the head of the settlement constitutes 2.8 salaries, i.e. 16 ,858.8 roubles.

These decisions were published in the established order in the official newspaper. However, Irina Kopylova or someone else in her interests prepared a written version of the decision of the Council of Deputies of the settlement dated October 16, in which the size of the monthly monetary remuneration was 5.5 salaries, i.e. in the amount of 33,115.5 roubles.