Press Release, 16.03.2021

Photo: The Yabloko faction of the Moscow City Duma, from left to right: Sergei Mitrokhin, Daria Besedina, Yevgeny Bunimovich and Maxim Kruglov.

Maxim Kruglov, head of the Yabloko faction in the Moscow City Duma, sent an appeal to the head of the Moscow police, Oleg Baranov, with a proposal to prove the effectiveness of the Safe City electronic surveillance system after a chemical attack on the Novaya Gazeta editorial office.

On 15 March, 2021, a noxious chemical smell was felt in the building of Novaya Gazeta editorial office (3 Potapovskiy lane, Moscow), where not only the office of the newspaper is located, but also rented premises, for example, a children’s studio and a subdivision of the Moscow Department of Transport (GBU MosTransProekt). It was noted not only by journalists, but also by other people who were in the building, including employees of the Moscow Mayor’s Office. Officers from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Emergency Situations and even the Federal Security Service (FSB), as well as the communal services, that arrived at the scene. However, according to the final conclusion of Mosgaz (Moscow gas service), they did not find any signs of a leakage.

A few hours later, the editorial office of Novaya Gazeta published a video from an outdoor surveillance camera showing how a man dressed in the uniform of a courier from one of the food delivery services lingers in one place for no apparent reason, and at that moment clouds of unknown gas start evaporating from his bicycle.

“Look, this is already a machine for committing terrorist acts: a fake courier sprays poisonous gas from a container which is mounted on a bicycle, right at the entrance to the building. The idea is clear: employees who have passed through the stain will bring the poison to all floors of the building on their soles,” runs the editorial office statement.

The publication also recalls the repeated cases of threats against the journalists of the paper, which is famous for its independent investigations.

Less than a week ago, on 10 March, Oleg Baranov, head of the Moscow department  of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, presented an annual report on the work of his department to the deputies of the Moscow City Duma. Opposition MPs, including all representatives of the Yabloko faction, criticised both the form and the content of the report. Yabloko also prepared an alternative report on the work of the police, which separately highlighted the fact that police used the Safe City system to prosecute opposition political activists.

Yevgeny Bunimovich, MP of the Yabloko faction of the Moscow City Duma and Chairman of the Commission on Science and Education, reminded to the head of the Moscow police that when considering the budget of Moscow for 2021, Yabloko deputies questioned the ethics of using the Safe City system and asked to clarify how legal the use of such technologies was and how it related to the law on the protection of personal data.

“The police come home to people who did not commit any unlawful actions, who are not accused of anything, but they were just fixed by the cameras in the wrong place in and time,” Bunimovich explained the position of the faction. Raising the same topic, Maxim Kruglov, head of the Yabloko faction, said that the police virtually persecuted people for the “crime of thought”.

In response, Oleg Baranov emphasised that his tasks include the use of all means and all possibilities for solving crimes.

And already three days after the public criticism, Sergei Mitrokhin, an MP of the Moscow City Duma from Yabloko and a member of the Federal Political Committee of the party,  was detained during a meeting with his voters. Mitrokhin faces an administrative arrest for up to 30 days. After this two more opposition deputies of the Moscow City Duma Yekaterina Yengalycheva and Mikhail Timonov were detained.

Basing on what was said during the report of the head of the Moscow police, the Yabloko faction of the Moscow City Duma appealed to the heads of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the city of Moscow with a proposal to use all the possibilities to establish the identity of the “courier” who got on the video  spraying poisonous gas to the entrance of Novaya Gazeta office and the motives of his actions, thus proving the effectiveness of the Safe City system in the fight against terrorism and other offenses.

The incident in the building of Novaya Gazeta took place on the same day with a publication containing testimonies of a former police officer of the Chechen Republic about extrajudicial executions of citizens of the Russian Federation in Chechnya. Based on the published evidence, Chairman of the Yabloko party Nikolai Rybakov appealed to the Public Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation and the Chairman of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation demanding to conduct an investigation.