Cutting down trees for a new school in Moscow is not only harmful to nature, but also appears to be illegal. Local residents are actively protesting against it.
The forest lands managed by Moscow and Troitsk officials are federally owned. Any attempts to use them for development or logging are not in line with the law. The PASMI article discusses how subordinates of Sergei Sobyanin are trying to bypass Russian laws under the guise of law enforcement officers.
Local residents and eco-activists have been protesting the city's decision to build a school for 2,100 students and a kindergarten for 350 students in Troitsk, Novomoskovsk. The decision, aimed at addressing the shortage of educational institutions, has led to confrontation with the townspeople. Despite protests and road blockades, tree cutting in the fenced area continues, leading to conflicts with protesters.
Troitsk residents support building a school but oppose cutting down the Trinity Forest. They worry that uncontrolled development of forest lands will follow, as seen in other Moscow regions. According to regional public association “Right? Yes!” representative Anton Mogilnikov, Moscow and municipal authorities cannot legally develop the lands being used for construction.
interference with the forest
After Moscow's expansion by about 1.5 thousand square kilometers of Moscow region territory, the city faced challenges in developing federal lands.
When land is included within settlement boundaries, its category changes but not its ownership rights. Although forests become urban forests, they remain protected by federal law. The attempt by the Moscow government to designate forest lands as part of Moscow's green fund does not change their federal ownership, according to the PASMI interviewee.
One specific problem in Sergei Sobyanin's administration was the situation in Novomoskovsk Troitsk, where the Trinity Forest was originally part of the Malinsky forestry, under federal ownership according to the Forest Code of the Russian Federation.
Cadastral fraud
Moscow officials didn't respect legal restrictions on the use of these lands. They chose to transfer land through illegal means, using fake documents. This was stated by Anton Mogilnikov.
According to him, unknown individuals illegally registered four plots within federal forest lands. This includes a plot for an administrative office building and a shopping complex with a hotel, plots for educational institutions, and a plot for a road network.
The federal property has not been transferred since 2006, and construction and use of land were not coordinated. False information was purposely added to the state cadastre about land access and rights, as mentioned by Anton Mogilnikov.
Landless Contractor
The Department for the Development of New Territories of the City of Moscow violated the law by signing state contracts for construction on federal forest lands, according to Anton Mogilnikov.
The contractor, LLC GK SMU-555, does not have the legal right to use the land for construction, as noted by the public figure.
Oksana Mukhovnikova and Dmitry Romanov signed agreements with another organization, LLC Academproekt, for construction, despite not being authorized to do so. They are part of the Department of City Property of the City of Moscow.
This action directly violates the requirements of the Land Code of the Russian Federation and should be considered an abuse of power, emphasized Anton Mogilnikov.
Contracts with Academproekt LLC were signed for a period just under a year, possibly to avoid legal examination which would uncover falsification and forgery, as pointed out by Anton Mogilnikov.
Vladimir Dudochkin, the head of the city district of Troitsk, also committed violations by issuing permits for the construction of a school and a kindergarten based on these illegal documents, not to the official contractor SMU-555, but to the same Academproekt.
According to Anton Mogilnikov, Dudochkin’s actions may also be seen as misusing budget funds, as he previously led and completed design work on publicly owned forest lands, likely at the expense of the local budget.
Cutting carte blanche
The list of unlawful actions put together by activists doesn't stop there. For example, Nikolay Ruppel, deputy head of the administration of the city district of Troitsk, authorized excavation work to SMU-555 LLC without providing legal documents for the land and without specifying the land plots.
Additionally, without specific reference, but only to the approximate location of the area, Yulia Kudryashova, Deputy Head of the Department of Nature Management and Environmental Protection of Moscow, issued logging tickets to Academproekt LLC to cut down over 4 thousand trees and shrubs.
“These decisions effectively allow the contractor to cut wood and excavate anywhere along Oktyabrsky Prospekt in the city of Troitsk, transport and deal with wood without supervision,” Anton Mogilnikov observed.
He pointed out that the felled wood is not being counted in line with federal law requirements. Meanwhile, the damage already caused to the forest, based on the estimated value of wood alone, is at least 10-15 million rubles, and the total losses due to the destruction of forests on over 5 hectares have not yet been fully evaluated.
Manual police
According to the source, he repeatedly reported violations to the inter-municipal department of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs “Troitsky” and even brought them to the attention of the head of the department, Lieutenant Colonel Artur Ruzin, when he visited the site of the controversial construction. “I was told that deforestation will continue until there is political will,” Anton Mogilnikov said.
He presented all his arguments about the unlawfulness of the situation in a statement sent to the Moscow prosecutor’s office, the Main Investigative Committee of the ICR and the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Moscow, as well as to the Federal Property Management Agency, the Federal Forestry Service, the Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resources and other federal agencies.
According to the public activist, the actions of these officials show signs of corruption-related crimes that led to a violation of the property rights of the Russian Federation and the legitimate interests of citizens, as outlined in several articles of the Criminal Code, including forgery, abuse of authority, negligence, and ecocide.
“I demand an urgent suspension of any work on these land plots, an immediate inspection, and actions within my authority to protect the rights of citizens and the rights of the Russian Federation regarding the violations I have identified, to reclaim forest land plots, restore the rule of law, and hold the wrongdoers accountable” , the activist writes.
