[Translation prepared by Business & Human Rights Resource Centre]

Exchange people for copper, 20 November 2023

...Bashkirskaya Med LLC, a subsidiary of the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company (UMMC), plans to build a copper and zinc mining plant...The deposit is located at a depth of 700 meters directly below the village. Many local residents are against the resettlement...

The company seems to be identifying a contractor who will carry out design and survey work. In the new village, residents are promised to be provided with equivalent housing. They also offer to provide housing in the regional center – Akyar. But while these essentially empty conversations are going on, right next to residential buildings in Podolsk, “Bashkir Copper” has already begun its dusty and very noisy work...

How will people be evicted from their homes? The situation looks like Bashkir Copper is already actively constructing its facilities at a distance of 100 meters from housing. The villagers turned to Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov and Chairman of the Investigative Committee of Russia Alexander Bastrykin about this. In addition, a collective appeal was sent to the head of the Federal Agency for Subsoil Use, Evgeniy Petrov. People are demanding that all work on the development of a copper deposit near residential buildings be suspended.

On 11th of October, based on their appeal, a criminal case was opened under Art. 293 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Negligence”). “But before the investigation had time to move into full swing, the Deputy Prosecutor of the Republic of Bashkortostan, Ruslan Abzaletdinov, closed this criminal case, as he considered that it had been opened by the investigative department without reason,” says Aizili Shayakhmetova, a resident of Podolsk. This is precisely the reason for the new appeal of local residents to the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Igor Krasnov...