The Moscow company sent migrants to dig trenches in Ukraine. Workers complain they are underpaid, 28 April 2023

[Summary translation prepared by Business and Human Rights Resource Centre]

The company "ABZ Bely Rast" sent labor migrants to the Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories to dig trenches in the frozen ground, "Sistema" found out (an investigative project of Present Time and Radio Liberty). After the work was done, the migrants were not paid. But the company's management believes they are the victims...

The co-owner of "ABZ Bely Rast", Yevgeny Konoplev, refused to answer Sistema's questions, but did not deny that the employees he hired worked in the Zaporozhye region. At the same time, a Sistema source close to the company’s management said that the victims in this story are the businessmen themselves: “Our company was treated very badly, extremely dishonorable people. They [working foremen] lie to their people, and then these people demand money from the organization they work for. We have encountered this twice, we barely got rid of these people." According to the company's management, they paid the money in full, but the foremen [...] did not bring the money to the workers...

The company "ABZ Bely Rast" is mainly engaged in road construction and the supply of related materials: concrete, asphalt and bricks. The main government customer for the Dmitrov asphalt plant is "Mosavtodor", which manages Moscow roads and is responsible for their maintenance...

Among the concluded contracts, there is not a single one related to the regions captured by Russia. According to the BBC Russian Service, the plant also supplied concrete structures to the front: "dragon teeth" were supposed to hold back the advance of heavy equipment in the event of a Ukrainian offensive...

For such activities, [...] workers in Ukraine may face real criminal cases, Ukrainian human rights activist Pavel Lisyansky told "Sistema". “If he dug trenches there, it means that he participated in the preparation of the occupation, in the fighting. This can already be qualified either as a conscious crime or as participation in illegal armed groups,” the human rights activist explained.

At the same time, workers can be put on the international wanted list, so Lisyansky advises them simply not to go to such work. "They are going to the war zone, the zone of occupation. Accordingly, what they had been promised will simply not be paid in 90% of cases," Lisyansky believes...