As it became known to RT, the young organization "Alliance of Doctors", an "independent trade union" that has been operating since August 2018 and proclaiming the main task of helping the medical community, provided doctors with respirators and gowns, making purchases at inflated prices.
This can be seen from the trade union report for June - September 2020, published on the organization's website.
In particular, in the column "Costs for personal protective equipment" respirators of protection class FFP3 and FFP2 are indicated.
They bought them at 358 and 258 rubles, respectively.
This is significantly higher than average prices, as shown by an analysis of several popular sites selling workwear and protective masks for June - September 2020.
According to archival copies of these sites, saved on the Wayback Machine portal, with a wholesale purchase, the cost of domestic FFP2 respirators varied from 25 to 60 rubles apiece.
Similar foreign-made respirators were sold for 190 rubles.
In the fall of 2020, a higher protection class - FFP3 - cost from 130 rubles apiece when purchased in small wholesale.
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© Alexander Kryazhev
Similarly, unscrupulous organizations, including foreign agents, receive funds for political activities, said Kirill Kabanov, chairman of the National Anti-Corruption Committee.
“They could write down one amount in the report, but in fact pay another, much less,” the head of the NAC believes.
- Procurement at inflated prices is a very large layer of violations by unscrupulous organizations that work with grants and donations.
Including with foreign ones.
In this way, they receive unaccounted for funds that can be used for further political activity. "
As a reminder, on March 3, 2021, the Ministry of Justice recognized the Alliance of Doctors as a foreign agent.
According to the ministry, citizens of Singapore, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, Norway, Czech Republic, Belarus and Ukraine donated money to the trade union.
Disappointing diagnosis
The activities of the "Alliance of Doctors" really can hardly be called exclusively trade union, although at first it looked like that.
“To take people to the streets, especially to mass actions, is a mockery,” Anastasia Vasilyeva said earlier, refusing to participate in rallies regarding additional payments to doctors in connection with the coronavirus epidemic.
Anastasia Vasilieva
RIA News
© Evgeny Odinokov
It was last September.
But already in January, the current Vasilyeva urged her Twitter followers to go to unauthorized rallies in support of Alexei Navalny.
After the rallies on January 23, 2021, it was these calls that formed the basis of the criminal case of the head of the Alliance of Doctors on violation of sanitary and epidemiological norms.
On February 4, the Investigative Committee charged her with incitement to commit this crime (part 4 of article 33, part 1 of article 236 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
Participants of an unauthorized rally on Pushkinskaya Square in Moscow on January 23
RIA News
© Evgeny Odinokov
Vasilyeva's lawyer Dmitry Dzhulay then told RIA Novosti that his client "does not admit guilt and considers the accusation to be nonsense."
Now Vasilyeva, like other defendants in this case (a member of the punk group Pussy Riot Maria Alyokhina, head of Navalny's Moscow headquarters Oleg Stepanov, Lyubov Sobol and the brother of the oppositionist Oleg Navalny), is under house arrest awaiting trial.
However, as RT found out, the Alliance of Doctors and Vasilyeva herself were repeatedly accused of violating the restrictive measures in force in the country.
Although until now it was not about criminal, but about administrative offenses.
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Quarantine measures
In April 2020, the Alliance of Doctors announced a fundraising campaign for masks, gowns and respirators for doctors.
The trade union handed over personal protective equipment to regional hospitals.
On one of the first "humanitarian" trips on April 2, 2020, Vasilyeva and several union representatives were detained on the M11 highway near Nizhny Novgorod.
Anastasia Vasilyeva was charged then with two articles of the Administrative Code - “Failure to comply with the rules of conduct during high alert” (Article 20.6.1) and “Disobedience to the lawful demands of the police” (Article 19.3).
As the court of the city of Okulovka, Novgorod Region, ruled in June last year, Vasilyeva "had no right and objective reasons" to be in this region, violating the provisions of the governor's decree on establishing and observing quarantine measures.
The head of the trade union was fined 5 thousand rubles.
Similar decisions were made with regard to eight more Alliance volunteers.
Among them were Natalya Kolosova, regional leader of the Alliance of Doctors in the Moscow Region, and Vyacheslav Gimadi, head of the legal department of the Navalny Anti-Corruption Foundation **.
Also on russian.rt.com On February 14, 5.37 million rubles were withdrawn from a bitcoin wallet associated with the FBK Navalny
The latter has already been involved in an investigation by RT about how FBK is engaged in commercial activities.
In particular, it was mentioned that, being the general director of two commercial firms, he could not register the Navalny.LIVE channel on them as a media outlet, since Roskomnadzor “had reasonable suspicions that the sole founder of the media outlet had dual citizenship”.
Vasilyeva received two more administrative fines for resisting the evacuation of her Honda, and then refusing to go to the police station in Okulovka.
Panic virus
At the same time, in April 2020, Kazimir Budunov, the head of the regional division of the Alliance of Doctors, was convicted by the Makhachkala District Court of “failure to comply with the rules when introducing a high alert regime” in case of a threat of an emergency.
The court found him guilty under the same Art.
1 of the Administrative Code, since Budunov left his place of residence during self-isolation.
The trade unionist then got off with a warning.
A month later, in May, an administrative case was brought against the head of the Alliance of Doctors in Sochi, Yulia Volkova.
On her Twitter, she posted a video in which she announced the lack of masks and protective equipment and hinted that doctors could become a source of infection for patients.
After that, Volkova's colleagues in the hospital wrote a statement to the head physician, in which they said that Volkova was "destabilizing the situation" and "sowing panic among the population."
Law enforcement agencies accused Volkova of abuse of freedom of the media (part 9 of article 13.15 of the Administrative Code), but then the case was closed, and the trade unionist removed the controversial post from the social network.
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Earlier, in February 2020, Volkova was fined 20 thousand rubles by the court for holding an unauthorized rally near the city administration building, although another place for the rally was agreed with the local authorities.
In November 2020, in the same Okulovka, a member of the Alliance of Doctors, head of the surgical department of a local hospital, Yuri Korovin, received a fine of 50 thousand rubles by a court decision.
Administrative proceedings were brought against him under Article 6.3 of the Administrative Code for violation of sanitary rules.
As the court established, during the pandemic, Korovin was at his workplace without a mask, when he received a regional union manager who brought medical supplies and household appliances to the hospital.
Politicians in white coats
People who stand up for the rights of doctors and, in general, for the health of citizens, themselves systematically violate sanitary and epidemiological requirements, say experts interviewed by RT.
Rallies, actions and strikes are legal methods of trade union struggle, recalled Mikhail Shmakov, a member of the State Council of the Russian Federation, chairman of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia (FNPR).
But in a pandemic, he said, it is necessary to comply with the restrictions imposed on mass events.
“Anti-epidemic measures must be taken.
It is especially unclear to me why the doctors themselves violate these conditions, ”says the head of the FNPR.
The actions of the Alliance, continues Shmakov, are explained by political objectives.
“They are in line with completely different interests.
This is not a traditional union.
It is a political organization with political goals.
They just packaged their activities in the form of a trade union, - said Shmakov.
- We do not believe in words, but in deeds.
This trade union often ascribes to itself those achievements and those solutions to issues that have already been resolved by the Healthcare Trade Union of the Russian Federation. "
The head of the federal project on security and the fight against corruption, the former deputy head of the Solnechnogorsk region, Vitaly Borodin, agrees with this opinion.
“It seems like each of these administrative cases is a trifle.
But in the aggregate, they demonstrate the attitude of this trade union to the safety of citizens during a pandemic, ”says Borodin.
In his opinion, the actions of the union are more show than useful.
As an example, he cited a story from Solnechnogorsk.
The "Alliance of Doctors" arrived there on April 21, 2020, allegedly in order to transfer means of protection to representatives of the city tuberculosis hospital.
However, the administration of the hospital of the SIZ of an unknown production did not officially accept it.
The entire batch was unloaded to the apartment of one of the hospital employees in private.
At the same time, the "Alliance of Doctors" reported on the completed delivery in its Instagram.
The "Alliance of Doctors" arrived in Solnechnogorsk in 12 cars, "violated all security measures and coronavirus restrictions," Borodin told RT.
“It is not clear what they were trying to achieve,” the expert says.
- Perhaps this is a planned action not aimed at real help to citizens.
Representatives of the "Alliance" all the time tried to provoke the authorities to a conflict with their actions. "
The Ministry of Health of the Moscow Region then called the incident in Solnechnogorsk "an unsuccessful attempt to account for the funds spent, which are collected from caring citizens."
* "Alliance of Doctors" is included in the register of NPOs performing the functions of a foreign agent, by the decision of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation dated 03.03.2021.
** The Anti-Corruption Foundation is included in the register of NPOs performing the functions of a foreign agent by the decision of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation dated 09.10.2019.