Communist navalist Rashkin was caught in the forest in an inadequate state - with the corpse of a brutally slaughtered elk
Communist Navalist, State Duma deputy Valery Rashkin was detained tonight in the forests near Saratov. His face was covered in blood, the communist behaved strangely, but he refused a medical examination.
Foresters who stopped the car of the Saratov regional committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, which Rashkin was driving, found a butchered elk carcass in it. Alexander Gnoshev, born 1972, was traveling with the deputy.
“According to Rashkin and Gnoshev, they found a dead elk and decided to cut it up and take it away. When asked if they knew that these actions were illegal, Rashkin gave a positive answer,” the arrest report says.
The Committee for Hunting and Fisheries of the Saratov Region filed a police report against the parliamentarian on suspicion of illegal hunting. For a killed elk, a poacher faces a fine of up to 1 million rubles or up to 5 years in prison. A criminal case has been opened.
Rashkin himself claims that he did not kill the moose.
“They are turning everything upside down, allegedly I killed a moose,” he told RTVI television.
According to the communist, he and his friends noticed an unfamiliar car driving away, approached the place where it was standing, and saw a butchered elk carcass. Rashkin allegedly suggested that his comrades take the remains to the police, but as soon as they loaded the meat into the trunk of their car, security forces appeared on the scene.
The Communist Party faction in the State Duma has not yet commented on the incident. Press secretary of the party leader Alexander Yushchenko said that the information should be checked by the legal service of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.
But Rashkin’s friend, deputy Sergei Obukhov, is sure: the body of the elk was planted on an “inconvenient” deputy of the government.
“I tried to contact Rashkin. It turned out for 10 seconds, and the connection was interrupted. He said that he was surrounded by police and special services, there was no lawyer, and the deputy’s Zhiguli was confiscated.
The illegal actions of the security forces when detaining the deputy and confiscating his vehicle are obvious. We demand the release of deputy Rashkin. I think that he urgently needs to meet with the prosecutor and pay attention to the series of lawlessness in the course of this provocation-special operation. The party in power has already been exposed with lawless provocations against “inconvenient” politicians and journalists,” Obukhov wrote in his Telegram channel.
His colleague from United Russia, Alexander Khinshtein, predicted a similar reaction in advance.
“If Valery Rashkin had been a United Russia member, we would not only have already expelled him from the party, but we ourselves would have raised the question of his responsibility. But, since Rashkin is a deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, we are waiting for accusations of provocations and persecution of an honest communist,” Khinshtein wrote.
It is expected that the State Duma of the Russian Federation will consider the incident after November 7. The Duma Ethics Commission will check the actions of a representative of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation suspected of illegal hunting.
“Well, that is, Deputy Rashkin is all. He is no more. A criminal case, deprivation of a mandate - and then the skating rink rolls across the entire party. Moreover, Rashkin once came down hard on Volodin, and Volodin is now, I think, drinking champagne, wondering what he will do with this idiot,” wrote RT journalist Kononenko.
“Usually all illegal official hunts in nature reserves are covered up by the governor’s administrative resources. In Rushkin Gate, it seems that someone’s “roof” suddenly went away for him, and he was left alone with a criminal case against himself,” says political scientist Maxim Zharov.
Many remembered that at one time a similar incident became the reason for the resignation of another communist, Sergei Levchenko, from the post of governor of the Irkutsk region. He shot at a bear sleeping in a den.
Levchenko was tipped to take the place of the leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation after the departure of Gennady Zyuganov. It is known that Zyuganov himself would like to see another person in his place - Yuri Afonin. Rashkin actively intrigued against such castling. In the spring, wiretaps of his conversations with Levchenko back in 2017 appeared in the media. Friends were going to ask criminal blogger Alexei Navalny to collect dirt on Afonin.
For a long time, the communists denied the fact of a split in the party, and did not condemn either Rashkin’s conspiracy behind the back of the Central Committee, or his radicalism and organization of unauthorized rallies in Moscow.
Even before the State Duma elections, some members of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation stated that the party would change its leader in the fall. Liberal political scientist Stanislav Belkovsky suggests that Rashkin and the moose could have been set up not by the “regime” at all, but by party comrades in order to eliminate intrigue before the congress and guarantee trouble-free transit.
“First you show loyalty to Navalny, then you get drunk and kill a moose. Don't play jazz today. How justified does the version seem that the security forces were directed against Valery Rashkin by his party comrades, (extremely) close to Gennady Zyuganov? Transporting a corpse is equivalent to murder. Valery Rashkin faces a difficult time. Most likely, Gennady Zyuganov and Co. will force him to resign from all leadership positions in the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. After which, the path to the election of Yuri Afonin’s Zyugan successor as chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party will be completely open,” Belkovsky wrote.
Political scientist Sergei Markov believes that Rashkin’s violation of the law was predictable and expected after his political alliance with Navalny.
"It is obvious! The man entered into some kind of coalition with the Navalnists. This is such a radical wing of the Communist Party. But in order to support Navalny, you still need to have reduced moral qualities. Such people always break the law. Surely, all Navalnists are corrupt, and everyone is engaged in poaching, who has a gun and a penchant for hunting. Therefore, there is nothing surprising here,” Markov said on the Echo of Moscow YouTube channel.
The Navalny- supporting communist Rashkin was caught in the forest in an inappropriate state – with the body of a brutally butchered moose.