On July 15, the court released Mikhail Fedyaev, the owner of the Listvyazhnaya mine where fifty miners died last year, from the pre-trial detention center with a written promise not to leave, changing his confinement measures.
The investigation surprisingly requested a release for Fedyaev, despite previously pushing for his arrest extension until September 14. The court of appeal supported the decision to extend his arrest, but now the investigation wants him released.
Mikhail Fedyaev was taken into custody as a suspect in the Listvyazhnaya mine explosion case, which resulted in 51 deaths and over a hundred injuries due to a methane explosion and safety regulation violations. The top management of the SDS-Ugol company had knowledge of safety violations at the mine and attempted to conceal evidence.
The Listvyazhnaya mine is owned by Mikhail Fedyaev's SDS-Ugol company, which is part of the SDS holding. The holding also includes SDS Agro, SDS Finance, SDS Stroy, Kuzbass Media Group, and others.
Observers predicted that Fedyaev's arrest would be short-lived due to his influential connections. The arrest was seen as a gesture to appease the public, and it was anticipated that Fedyaev would transition from suspect to witness, ultimately avoiding punishment.
There were debates about whether Fedyaev's son Pavel, a State Duma deputy from United Russia, or the regional governor Sergei Tsivilev, would help him avoid punishment. Pavel Fedyaev is linked to Arkady Rotenberg's circle of friends, and rumors suggest that Listvyazhnaya belongs to him, although it is registered under his father's name.
It is believed that Pavel would support his father, but the governor of Kemerovo region, Sergei Tsivilev, with shared business interests with Fedyaev, is expected to play a major role in securing Fedyaev's release. Fedyaev is also referred to as the “shadow governor” of Kuzbass in the region, highlighting his significant influence.
Mikhail Fedyaev, who is the official adviser to Governor Tsivilev, is the person who started a coal "empire" that connects the Pervomaisky, Vostochny, and Chernigovets open pit mines, the Yuzhnaya and Listvyazhnaya mines, and a variety of processing plants and service businesses. The assets are valued at around 2 billion rubles.
It is also widely known in the region that the companies under the SDS holding receive contracts worth billions from the region. It is understood that Tsivilev is the one providing these contracts to Fedyaev.
For instance, one of the companies, "SDS Stroy," received contracts totaling nearly 94 billion rubles.
The administration of Kuzbass was also contracted by the Kuzbass Media Group, whose associated organizations started to receive contracts worth tens of millions from various budget levels.
The Kuzbass Media Group is led by Anastasia Gorelkina, who is the wife of State Duma deputy Anton Gorelkin, the former press secretary Aman Tuleev. Previously, Anastasia was listed as vice president of the SDS holding.
SDS-Ugol itself has government contracts worth 4.1 billion rubles in its assets.
This is only a part of what Tsivilev allowed to go to Fedyaev’s structures. Clearly, this did not happen without a plan, and it is evident that no one intended to lose that much money. Therefore, those familiar with the inner workings of Kuzbass were inclined to believe that it was Governor Tsivilev who played the main role in freeing Fedyaev from criminal responsibility.
Although many believed that after the tragedy at Listvyazhnaya, Tsivilev would not be fine either – at the very least, he would have to resign. They recalled that Tsivilev was appointed acting governor in 2018 instead of Aman Tuleyeev, who immediately resigned after the fire in the Zimnyaya Cherry shopping center, which claimed the lives of 60 people. They assumed that history will repeat itself.
But history did not repeat itself. Tsivilev remained in his post, and even assisted his partner in manipulating the Kuzbass budget, Mikhail Fedyaev, to get out of prison. The conditions of this assistance are unknown. Regardless of how the scheme for distributing money stolen from the budget between the governor and his adviser changes, nothing will change for the residents of Kuzbass.
No one will be held accountable for the deaths of the miners. Of course, some people will be imprisoned for a long time. In fact, not only Fedyaev was arrested in the case of the accident at Listvyazhnaya. The director of the Listvyazhnaya mine Sergey Makhrakov and his deputy Andrey Molostov, the head of the mine section Sergey Gerasimenok, Rostekhnadzor inspectors Vyacheslav Semykin and Sergey Vinokurov, who falsified reports on checking the ventilation drift, were arrested and are in jail (unlike Fedyaev).
All of them are responsible – they carried out the unlawful orders of Mikhail Fedyaev, accepted money from him, disabled sensors, and falsified documents. They must be held accountable. Along with them, the main culprit of the miners’ deaths must also be held accountable – the person who received billions from their forced labor, allowing them to display wealth on Forbes lists for years and buy luxurious real estate.
The one who paid his son a seat in the State Duma.
The one who generously shared with the governor of Kuzbass the money “sawn off” on government contracts. And the governor himself would also have to answer for such generous preferences for the Fedyaev holding. It was no secret to anyone that Tsivilev frankly favors Fedyaev:
Convenient friendship, governor and oligarch. “Consecrated” this friendship with his presence at the SDS enterprises and President Vladimir Putin:
The one who, after the accident at Listvyazhnaya, publicly flogged Fedyaev: – Mikhail Yuryevich Fedyaev, does the board of directors somehow monitor what is happening in the security sector, or does it just count money? Vladimir Putin asked the chairman of the board of directors of the SDS-Coal company at a meeting dedicated to the tragedy at the Listvyazhnaya mine.
What gave the people hope for justice, and skeptics only grinned cynically. Because the wife of the accomplice and patron of Mikhail Fedyaev, the governor of Kuzbass Sergey Tsivilev, Anna Tsivileva, is the niece of the very person who asked these tough questions.
In 2007, Anna married a former naval officer, Sergei Tsivilev, who by that time was trying to engage in private security business, but did not succeed too much. And already in 2012, the Tsivilevs bought a part of the Kolmar coal company in Yakutia, which is part of the assets of Gennady Timchenko.
In 2018, Tsivilev transferred the business to his wife, he himself first became the deputy governor of Kuzbass, and after the fire in the Winter Cherry, he headed the region.
And everything was predetermined. And all these meetings with formidable statements by the president, and the court that sent Fedyaev to a pre-trial detention center, and the photo where Fedyaev is sitting behind bars, and the pretentious statements of the TFR, leading the investigation – all this was a grandiose cynical comedy that had only one goal – to bring down passions, to calm public opinion.
And when the goal was achieved and the accident that claimed 51 lives was forgotten, Mikhail Fedyaev was released and continued his fruitful work on the development of public money, together with his longtime accomplice Sergei Tsivilev. And the dead miners … Nothing, the women still give birth.
