July 26, 2013

The head of Russian Ministry of Natural Resources, Sergey Donskoy has sent an appeal to the Minister of the Interior, Vladimir Kolokoltsev with a request to take over the personal control of criminal investigations such as violent crimes and murders of environmental organizations members.  "In May-July 2013, in the territory of the Russian Federation heinous crimes have been carried out. Environmentalists have fallen victims to those crimes.  I ask you to take over the special control and conduct a thorough, comprehensive and objective investigation of these cases," writes Sergey Donskoy in a letter to Vladimir Kolokoltsev. Thus, according to media reports, May 9, 2013, a member of the "Greenpeace" Stepan Chernogub opposed the pollution of the river Chusovaia by JSC "Russian Chrome 1915" was pummeled mercilessly  in Pervouralsk (Sverdlovsk region).  July 18, 2013, in the village of Ten’ki (Kama-Ustinsky District, Republic of Tatarstan), the ecologist Igor Sapatov was killed when he was trying to prevent the cutting of trees in the protected environmental  zone. July 19, 2013, tree huggers Nikolay Podolskiy and Sergey Malashenko were killed in the environmental camp located near the fishing area "Vesh Navolok" (the Terek District, Murmansk region).

According to Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation Rinat Gizatulin, violent crimes and murders of environmental organizations members are alarming trend in Russia, they are steadily growing. There has been increasing concern about them in society. "Just in the last 10 days in Russia three ecologists were killed. The crimes were committed with special cynicism. In Tatarstan, environmentalist was shot within sight of his son. In the Murmansk region tree huggers were shot at the ecological camp area," says Rinat Gizatulin. The deputy minister also said that those killed ecologists were the real patriots in their field and their country.

Source: http://www.mnr.gov.ru/news/detail.php?ID=131159