Press Release, 19.04.2024

Photo: Vladimir Petrov and Nikolai Sorokin

Two municipal deputies from Yabloko – Vladimir Petrov in Seversk, the Tomsk region, and Nikolai Sorokin in Kostroma – were deprived of their mandates. The formal reasons were the demand of the city public prosecutor’s office due to the verdict in a criminal case and “inaccuracies in the declaration”. In fact, in both cases, local authorities got rid of actively working deputies who protected the interests of citizens.

Vladimir Petrov is a well-known opposition politician in the Tomsk region. He defended the rights of doctors of the Siberian Siberian Federal Clinical Research Centre to decent wages, dealt with housing and utilities services problems and was in confrontation with colleagues in the City Duma from the pro-government United Russia.

Vladimir Petrov was put under pressure, accused of fraud on an especially large scale. Petrov’s company was accused of failure to fulfill house maintenance contracts for 2 million roubles. The city public prosecutor’s office demanded that Petrov be imprisoned for five years. But instead, in February 2023, the city court issued an acquittal. However, the public prosecutor’s office appealed the decision: on 5 February, 2024, the same court found Vladimir Petrov guilty and sentenced him to 300 hours of forced labour. At the same time, the deputy was released from punishment due to the expiration of the statute of limitations for criminal prosecution. However, this did not stop the public prosecutor’s office from demanding that the City Duma deprive Vladimir Petrov of his deputy mandate. On 28 March, the parliamentary pro-government majority adopted such a decision.

“See you in the Duma of Seversk of the next convocation. I hope I won’t see the overwhelming [pro-government] majority of the current convocation there, led by their chairman. Peace and health to everyone. I’ll stay in touch,” Vladimir Petrov commented on his Telegram channel.

Vasily Yeryomin, the head of the Yabloko faction in the Tomsk City Duma, where they recently managed to defend the mandate of deputy Yevgeny Kaverzin, comments on the situation in Seversk:

“Vladimir Petrov is a fighter for the rights of ordinary people, for the economical use of budget funds. This is not to the liking of the [pro-government] deputies and [their] United Russia [party]. We will fight to cancel the Duma’s decision, since it is unlawful.”

Meanwhile, it was reported that the City Duma of Kostroma deprived Nikolai Sorokin, a deputy from Yabloko and human rights activist, from his mandate. He fought for a transparent and open discussion of the city budget for citizens, opposed the sale of municipal property for next to nothing, the destruction of architectural monuments, and the elimination of trolleybus transport. This time the public prosecutor’s office claims that the deputy “hid part of his income from his declaration”. Although the trial on the claim of the public prosecutor’s office is scheduled for 23 April, the Kostroma City Duma decided to deprive Sorokin of his powers already on 28 March. Sorokin explains this rush by the desire of the authorities to announce by-elections in his district on the September single voting day, “in order to quickly push another silently obedient United Russia party member into the City Duma.”

The public prosecutor’s office is trying to present 5.200 roubles (approximately USD 52) in Sorokin’s account at Gazprombank, which he did not know about: the bank, on its own initiative, opened an account for the deputy, accruing dividends there for Sorokin’s investment of a Gazprom voucher in 1991 (the account was opened using the data of the politician’s passport which expired long ago, and the bank employees did not even inform Sorokin of their opening an account in his name). In addition, transfers of money from one of his Sberbank cards to another, as well as money that colleagues borrowed from him and then returned to his card, were announced an “undeclared income”. All these people were ready to give detailed explanations, but the public prosecutor’s office did not want to question any of them.

At the same time, the public prosecutor’s office appealed to the court with a demand to seize from Sorokin a total amount of about 4 million roubles, which over two years passed through his bank cards.

The text of the public prosecutor’s office’s appeal to deprive Sorokin of his mandate was not even shown to the deputies at the Duma meeting, although Sorokin persisted on it. But United Russia members said that an oral statement from a public prosecutor’s office employee was enough for them, and voted to deprive Sorokin of his powers. The Press Service of the City Duma, justifying the actions of the deputies, reported that Sorokin “destabilised the situation in the city.”

Nikolai Sorokin intends to seek justice in court, but believes that he will not be able to regain his deputy mandate, since regional legislation does not provide for such a mechanism.

Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov, commenting on the situation with the deprivation of powers of Yabloko deputies, notes the professionalism of Vladimir Petrov and Nikolai Sorokin:

“I believe that they are the most active deputies in their cities, working to protect the rights and interests of people. Certainly, the authorities don’t like this and they use all possible methods to oust them from politics. But I assure you that they will continue their work, albeit for some time without formal mandates, but enjoying the support and trust of the people.”