Artem Zdunov became furious with the prosecutor’s questions about his privileges
The other day, an entertaining video appeared in the TG “VChK-OGPU”, made at a meeting of the local parliament, in which you can clearly see and hear how a verbal conflict arose between the head of the Republic of Mordovia, Artem Zdunov, and the region’s first deputy chief prosecutor, Alexander Ivanov. The reason for this was the speech from the rostrum of a representative of the supervisory authority, who told the deputies that Governor Zdunov can breed corruption in his personal interests: they talked about paying for personal residence and tourist vouchers from the head of Mordovia to the budget expenditure.
It turned out that this incident took place in June 2022, but they tried to remove the video of the scandal from the official resources of Parliament. However, it still went public in April 2023.
It all started with the fact that the prosecutor Alexander Ivanov (at that time he was the acting chief prosecutor of the republic) calmly told the deputies for four minutes that they had given too many “buns” to the head of the Republic, Zdunov. Among them is the free use (that is, at the expense of the budget of the republic) of the residence for the chief and his family, which “does not exclude its use for personal purposes”.
- For several months, the drafters of the law have not been able to explain to us whether the “use of the residence” is to live there. And, accordingly, whether the free provision of public services is provided. It will be an additional spending requirement,” Ivanov said.
Photo: Alexander Sergeevich Ivanov, First Deputy Prosecutor of the Republic Photo source: Official website of the Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Mordovia, https://epp.genproc.gov.ru/ He reminded MPs that Mordovia, in fact, is far from being the richest region of the country.
- Given the current state of the budget of the republic, a public debt of 50 billion rubles, a budget deficit of more than 2.5 billion rubles, a lack of funds for medicines of about 350 million, a need 1.5 billion for the purchase of housing for orphans, the establishment of such guarantees is clearly premature , – the prosecutor nailed the public with figures.
Ivanov called on the developers to say exactly how much money they decided to spend with all these deficits on housing for the Zdunov family.
Ivanov’s speech infuriated Zdunov, who already had little restraint. The head of the republic demanded not to enter into his personal privileges and do something else, because “the staff cannot even reach the prosecutor”.
Photo: Artem Alekseevich Zdunov, head of the Republic of Mordovia Photo source: official website of the state authorities of the Republic of Mordovia, https://e-mordovia.ru/ Then the head of the republic simply became furious. He urged the Speaker of Parliament Vladimir Chibirkin:
“Give me the floor”, and demanded from the prosecutor “not to leave immediately”.
“Let’s see what you do, shall we?” You are somehow negligent of the MPs hour! If you are going to work side by side to solve problems, deal with the topics. And respect the deputies, don’t waste their time! said Zdunov.
After that, he began to list his claims to the prosecutor’s office – they say that they do not help the government of the republic with “reimbursement of state debt under false documents”, they do not deal environmental problems of Lake Inerka and other questions: “Why do your employees demand that our employees refuse to return property to the court? Why are you so selective in your duties? What kind of mess is going on in your office of the Prosecutor? Do we have a kind of republic of dumps? Respect the Republic!
Zdunov did not respond to the substance of the prosecutor’s questions. “I am not your subordinate. And the conclusions as to whether I am finalizing or not are drawn by the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation,” Ivanov said.
At the same time, in addition to the residence of the head of the region, the budget of the republic must pay for sanatorium treatment, visits, personal transport and communications. A wide range of benefits, and especially expensive ones, accrue to the former heads of the republic. Now it is Nikolai Merkushkin, known for his electoral miracles, who has consistently given more than 90% of the vote for United Russia in all elections, and his former first deputy Vladimir Volkov, who led Mordovia, Zdunov’s predecessor .
“Everyone here is very respected people. And there is no need to put pressure on us and threaten us, ”warned prosecutor Zdunov at the end of the skirmish.
According to the Cheka-OGPU telegram channel, parliament staff tried to cleanse the official file of the dispute from all resources. But you can’t hide such a punch in a bag, and although the meeting happened quite a long time ago, this channel still managed to find and post scandalous videos.
The two debaters are indeed “highly respected people”. Prosecutor Ivanov moved to the republic in March 2021, after working in the Krasnoyarsk Territory for more than 20 years. Where he was responsible at different times for the most diverse issues: from the activities of remand centers and settlements to anti-corruption controls of laws.
Zdunov ruled Mordovia in November 2020. Previously, he worked as the prime minister of the vast Dagestan under the half-dead (in the political sense) leader of United Russia Vladimir Vasiliev, and even earlier he was a minister in the government of Tatarstan . Zdunov was first considered a “Tatarstan clan” candidate for the federal government, the informal leader of which is now considered Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Marat Khusnullin. However, he himself claimed that he was Mordvin by blood.
From the start, Zdunov had rather strained relations with the local elites. From the first days he set himself up as a “tough inspector” of the republic and criticized, although without directly naming names, both Merkushkin and Volkov. Resignations, public reprimands and the involvement of security forces against “highly respected people” have become commonplace in Mordovia.
“Of course, we swore allegiance to such pressure. Merkushkin taught us to obey correctly. But in exchange, he left his hands free in his affairs, according to his rank. With this (Zdunov – approx. “Notepad”), you never know what it will fit into. Therefore, many of those seated in the hall applauded the prosecutor in their hearts,” a source in the Mordovian parliament told Bloknot. The conflict will obviously continue, and has already attracted the attention of the federal “curators” of the republic. Whether it was worth waiting for them to extinguish the conflict and not take sides, the republics struggled to assess.
Author: Nikolai Troinin
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