Russia Update: Migration Service to Close all Temporary Placement Centers for Refugees from Ukraine

The Tajik mother of an infant who died in police custody in St. Petersburg after a raid on migrants last month is now being deported from Russia, Novaya Gazeta reported.

Novaya Gazeta has provided extensive coverage in recent weeks of the case of 5-month-old Umarali Nazarov who died after police arrested his mother Zarina Yunusova, age 21, and her brother-in-law as illegal immigrants. The infant was taken to a police station but said to be neglected, and died despite being rushed to a hospital that night.

Police claimed the parents had neglected the baby, but Novaya Gazeta reported that the parents, while earning only a modest living as migrants, had cared for their child, showing pictures of warm beddings and a traditional painted cradle from Tajikistan.

The city court of St. Petersburg ruled today that Yunusova had to be deported from Russia within 15 days, despite the fact that investigation into the death of her child hasn’t been completed. Her permission to stay in Russia had earlier expired December 23, 2014. Yunusova explained that she was unable to fly home at that time because she was pregnant; her baby was born in May 2015.

The ruling followed a notice published on the web site of the Investigative Committee on November 10 saying the parents had refused to provide blood samples to authorities for the investigation and were therefore liable to charges of obstruction of a death investigation. They said an autopsy had found that the baby died of a virus. While a case had been opened to investigate accusations of neglect by the police, the Investigative Committee didn’t say whether it would continue; meanwhile they said an investigation was opened into the parents’ alleged obstruction of justice.

As Novaya Gazeta reported on October 21, police took Yunusova and her husband Rustam Nazarov to a city toxicology laboratory where they attempted to forcibly make them give blood samples. Only thanks to the arrival of their attorneys was the effort stopped.

On November 11, the medical examiner told the state press that he had discounted the diagnosis of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome given initially and said the baby had died from the cytomegalovirus, a common virus that can be passed from a mother to her child at birth and which has no obvious symptoms. Children do not always become ill from it unless they have a weakened immune system.

The examiner added that no drugs, medications or alcohol were found in the baby’s system. He explained that the infant was also diagnosed with pneumonia and enteritis, conditions that would have preceded the arrest.

Attorney Olga Tseytlina complained that TASS, the state media agency and Fontanka.ru released the news about the autopsy results before the mother was informed, citing a source in the medical examiner’s office of St. Petersburg. Novaya Gazeta was unable to obtain any documents from the autopsy. The parents objected that their infant had not been sick before the arrest, pointing to records of immunizations for the child that had all been made on schedule for his age, and a doctor’s report from an examination before his death showing that he was healthy.

Yunusova’s lawyers say the detention of the three Tajik citizens was made with numerous procedural violations. Due to a mix-up in translators, Yunusova was unable to be understood — she was given an Uzbek interpreter, which is a different language than Tajik. At the time, Yunusova refused to sign an arrest statement since she didn’t understand Russian. Finally a Tajik interpreter was found later to tell her what had happened to her child; she said he had literally been ripped from her arms.

Lawyers attempted to appeal to the court to have testify the policemen, an official from the child affairs agency and the translator who took part in the raid, but their petition was denied.

The Russian media has been avidly discussing the news that the Bank of Russia, or Central Bank as it is known is printing 3 million rubles, showing images such as currency printing presses and a parachutist in freefall.

Yevgeny Gavrilenkov, managing director of Sberbank, told RBC.ru that this is a “seasonal increase in the volume of cash, characteristic for the end of the year” and that “it is not a question of increasing the volume of cash.”

Russians receive end-of-year bonuses and gifts and spend them on New Year’s presents, then cut back at the start of the year. In January, the volume usually reduces, he added.

Luntovsky said that a 100-ruble note would soon be issued to commemorate the annexation of the Crimea, polit.ru reported, and denied the 10,000 ruble denomination would be created.

But these announcements paled compared to the mention of the trillion to be issued, which sparked memories of the government’s printing of cash in the Yeltsin era, which led to rampant inflation in the 1990s, polit.ru commented. The ruble crashed in 1998, setting the stage for the coming to power of Vladimir Putin.

Luntovsky tried to calm fears by saying the 3 million wouldn’t be created by literally printing ruble notes at the state plant in Perm, but transfering non-cash accounts to credit organizations or government accounts.

Polit.ru believes that the infusion of cash now is not the pumping into the economy of cheap cash, which has been proposed by conservative presidential advisor Sergei Glazyev and his supporters, but financing the deficit of the federal budget from the reserve fund.

— Catherine A. Fitzpatrick

Gennady Kornienko, director of the Federal Corrections Service (FSN) refused to allow Yelena Masyuk, a journalist for Novaya Gazeta and a member of the Presidential Council for Human Rights from visiting Oleg Navalny, brother of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Novaya Gazeta reported.

Oleg is serving a 2.5 year sentence in a labor colony in Orlov Region on charges of fraud related to a mail-order business that had contracted with the French company Yves Rocher. The case was widely seen as fabricated in retaliation for the anti-corruption work of Alexey Navalny, who was given a suspended sentence of 2.5  years in the same case. Yves Rocher had no claims against the brothers.

Oleg has not been involved in opposition activity, and his brother declared his arrest last December as “hostage-taking” to put pressure on himself.

Recently, Oleg has sent reports out of the colony complaining of poor treatment and placement in the punishment cell three times on various pretexts. He issued an appeal to Kornienko which has been published by Novaya Gazeta and requested signatures. Already 11,500 verified signatures have been made, among them 40 prominent people from various fields, including writer Vladimir Voynovich, Nobel literature prize laureate Svetlana Alexievich, Dmitry Gudkov, State Duma MP, Yevgeny Royzman, mayor of Yekaterinburg, and Yevgeniya Chirikova, environmentalist.

Mikhail Fedotov, head of the Presidential Human Rights Council had appealed to Kornienko with a request to allow a visitor to the labor colony. The request for Masyuk was denied in a letter today, but Kornienko offered to provide permission for another Council member, Andrei Babushkin.

Masyuk is a prominent journalist who worked for NTV in the days of its independence and was kidnapped by Chechen rebels in 1996. She was eventually released after a ransom was paid.

Last August, Fedotov had asked Kornienko to allow Masyuk and Babushkin to visit another prisoner, Yevteniya Vasilyeva, at that time held in a labor colony in the Oboronservis case. Then, too, Kornienko permitted Babushkin to enter the colony, but not Masyuk. Babushkin then expressed doubts that the person he saw was indeed Vasilyeva; there was suspicion that because of her connections to the defense ministry, she was not forced to actually serve her sentence in colony. Later, she was released early “for good behavior” after only 2 months.

At the time, Kornienko said confusingly that he couldn’t allow Masyuk into the camp because she was a member of the presidential council in Moscow, but the colony was in Vladimir Region. The fact is that Babushkin was at that time a member of the same council so the claim didn’t make sense.  Now it seems as if the same pretext is being used to keep a journalist out of the colony despite Russian law that allows for inspections of places of detention by public groups.

— Catherine A. Fitzpatrick 

ISIS had released a video threatening to attack Russia “very soon,” the Jerusalem Post reported, citing the SITE intelligence group.

According to a news item today on SITE: 

The Jerusalem Post said that the video chant was translated as “Soon, very soon, the blood will spill like an ocean.”

The ruble is taking a fall again after a period of rallying when President Vladimir Putin launched air strikes in Syria September 30.

Currently, according to the popular site Zenrus.ru, the exchange rate for the ruble is 66.28 to the dollar and 71.40 to the euro, with the cost of a barrel of oil down to $44.57.

Interest rates on ruble deposits in banks have fallen in the first 10 days of November by contrast with the previous month, and have fallen to the level they were last November, says RBC.ru. Last year, interest rates were 9.895% at the 10 largest banks and currently they are at 9.92%. After the Central Bank sharply hiked the key rate to 17%, the rates did not fall below 10%. Now the key rate is at 11%.

There may be a slight increase coming in December as people receive bonuses or dividends.

Government officials are working on a plan to create an alternative to savings accounts which would enable citizens to invest in federal securities through their banks which would help lower the deficit.

In October, an increased demand for CDs was observed, as more people invested in them. Russians spent 25.5 billion rubles ($385 million) on CDs during the past month; they produce higher interest but cannot be withdrawn or accessed via ATMs.

The Bank of Russia dismissed rumors that they were printing bank notes with a new denomination of 10,000 ruble, Gazeta.ru reported. A representative said that until inflation fell to 2-3% there would be no sense in such a denomination.

— Catherine A. Fitzpatrick