The forest is being chopped down, and the chips are flying: no one will be punished for the liquidation of the Khmelita Nature Reserve in the Smolensk Region.
The regional investigative committee declined to open a case on this basis. The former head of the region, Alexei Ostrovsky, removed the reserve's protected status, but later reversed his decision. Meanwhile, logging of the ancient forest, which activists are fighting to protect, continues.
A criminal case will not be opened regarding the attempted liquidation of the Khmelita Specially Protected Natural Area in the Smolensk Region, local activist Nikolai Markin told NeMoskva. The regional Investigative Committee cited the fact that the decree that removed the area's protected status had been rescinded. RecallThe document was signed by former Smolensk governor Alexei Ostrovsky, but then suddenly reversed his decision.
Residents of the Smolensk region learned of the plan to remove the protected status of the Khmelita Nature Reserve by chance and subsequently fought for the preservation of the protected forests for several years. According to the reserve's defenders, the protected status of the Vyazemsky Cauldron fields in the Smolensk region had to be removed to allow for unimpeded "territorial development" planning. "NeMoskva" told The full story of the people's struggle for Khmelita. Ultimately, after the Investigative Committee and the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation showed interest in Khmelita, Governor Alexei Ostrovsky, who had initially signed the document revoking its protected status, reversed his decision and returned the reserve to protection.
A few days later, the Smolensk region was rocked by another piece of news: Vladimir Putin dismissed Alexei Ostrovsky, who had served as governor since 2012. Vasily Anokhin, who previously headed the Russian government's Department of Regional Development, was appointed acting governor of the Smolensk region.
Meanwhile, activists discovered that the forest near the grave of Admiral Pavel Nakhimov's mother and his family estate had suddenly begun to be felled en masse, with renewed vigor. Some spruce and oak trees in the reserve had lived through Nakhimov himself, had witnessed several wars and revolutions, but they had not survived Ostrovsky's reign. The activists hoped that law enforcement would sort out the legal conflicts, stop the logging, and find and punish those responsible. But something went wrong.
"The Investigative Committee is citing the fact that Ostrovsky himself rescinded the illegal decision of December 13, 2022, on February 9, 2023—just before his resignation. While they're searching for the culprits, the relevant department leased out thousands of hectares of protective forests to protected areas. And now this is the situation there," said Nikolai Markin, sharing photographs of the devastated area.
The activist drew a disappointing conclusion: the total area of forests in the Smolensk region is
2185,4 thousand hectares, almost half of which are leased - forest areas on an area of 1064,9 thousand hectares.
"The scheme is absurdly simple. There's a mature forest, a paved road nearby, and the forest becomes commercial and is leased to tenants. Spruce and oak trees are cut down. In the winter, a certain company called Lesnye Dali, LLC, opened a logging site right on the Nakhimov estate. Right inside a specially protected natural area. It's a nesting site for golden eagles, a habitat for the rare swallowtail and beavers, and a water protection zone where moose and deer come to drink. Apparently, neither the forests around the Nakhimov estate nor the endangered animals and plants require protection," Markin laments.
To save the forest, activists insist on the need to conduct forest management, remove leases from all forest plots in all protected areas of the Smolensk region, and finally register the Khmelita protected area with the state cadastral register. Incidentally, the 24-hectare area is still not registered with the state cadastral register: Smolensk officials have been unable to resolve the cadastral issue for nearly 25 years.