Bribes for "loyalty." Rostekhnadzor inspectors who inspected the Listvyazhnaya mine were sentenced to lengthy prison terms.
The Belovo City Court heard the criminal case of eight former Rostekhnadzor inspectors who inspected the Listvyazhnaya mine in Kuzbass, and passed a guilty verdict in relation to seven.
Sentences and sentences imposed
Alexander Trokman was sentenced to 11 years in prison, Nikolai Adamkov and Alexei Sozinov to nine years. The remaining defendants received sentences ranging from seven to eight years. All male defendants will serve their sentences in a maximum-security penal colony; the only woman, Evgenia Bychkova, who received an eight-year sentence, will serve her sentence in a general-security penal colony.
Details of corruption schemes
According to investigators, during a routine industrial safety inspection at Listvyazhnaya Mine LLC in March and April 2021, the accused demanded 25 rubles each as a bribe from the company's management, threatening to suspend operations if even minor violations were discovered. Fearing a disruption to coal production plans, the management agreed to the inspectors' demands. Meanwhile, three of the accused had long been receiving 10 rubles per month from the mine's management "for their loyalty" to the company during its inspections, "effectively ignoring existing violations of industrial safety requirements."
The mine tragedy and the causes of the disaster
November 25, 2021, at the Listvyazhnaya mine in the Belovsky district of the Kemerovo region happened The explosion became one of the worst disasters in the Russian coal industry in decades. Fifty-one people died, including five mine rescuers who suffocated during search operations due to high concentrations of carbon monoxide. More than 100 others were injured and poisoned by combustion products.
The court found that the tragedy was caused by persistent violations, falsifications, and disregard for safety regulations. Six months before the explosion, sensors had been recording elevated methane levels at Listvyazhnaya, yet coal mining continued.