Press Release, 4.06.2020

Chairman of the Yabloko party Nikolai Rybakov called on the Russian authorities to dismiss all those responsible for concealing information about the accident in Norilsk, as well as make systemic changes in the field of environmental protection.

“We consider it necessary to dismiss Governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory Alexander Uss, head of the Federal Service for the Use of Natural Resources Svetlana Radionova and Minister of Natural Resources Dmitry Kobylkin,” the statement by the Yabloko Chairman ran.

The head of Yabloko also demanded that law enforcement agencies conduct a full and impartial investigation of what happened, make calculations of environmental damage and recover it in full. In addition, Nikolai Rybakov called on AO NTEC and PAO “GMK Norilsk Nickel” not to distribute dividends for 2020 in order to compensate for the damage and take measures to eliminate the consequences of the accident.

Rybakov also demanded that the Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resources Usage (Rosprirodnadzor), the Federal Service for Environmental, Technological and Nuclear Oversight of Russia (Rostekhnadzor) and other competent departments conduct a thorough check of compliance with legislation at all the facilities related to the circulation of significant volumes of oil products, natural gas, hazardous chemical and radioactive substances.

“The tragedy that occurred is the largest accident in the history of the Russian Arctic. At the same time, they tried to hide it and thereby exacerbated the consequences. These developments are reminiscent of the Chernobyl’s unlearned lessons – when concealing the real scale of the catastrophe only increased the consequences of the accident,” Nikolai Rybakov noted.

The head of Yabloko proposed to the authorities to carry out a number of structural changes. In particular as follows:

– strengthen environmental control, making it independent, directing the main forces to preventing rather than amending violations;

– create an independent body for the protection of nature;

– create an efficient institution of public inspectors;

– fight corruption in environmental control bodies and fill their staff with professionals in environmental protection;

– conduct checks when receiving information about threats to the population and the environment;

– prevent the adoption of the bill proposed by the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation on postponing until March 1, 2021, payments for negative environmental impacts;

– abandon all measures on reduction of environmental control and expertise provided for in the Nationwide Action Plan proposed by the Government of the Russian Federation on May 31, 2020.