State Duma deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Valery Rashkin, a suspect in the illegal hunting case, published a video message on YouTube in which he confessed to killing an elk.

Rashkin said that he "has nothing to fear and hide from society."

The deputy said that he had arrived in the village of Lysiye Gory, Saratov Region, to see friends who invited him to go fishing and, "if possible, to hunt."

According to him, he did not drink alcohol on the day of the incident.

Rashkin emphasized that he was told that the hunt was open and that there was permission to shoot ungulates.

“I had no reason not to trust these words, since before that there had never been a single case that something was not issued for a hunt and participation in it by invitation,” he said.

According to him, at a distance from the farm house, the deputy saw a clearing, left the car, took binoculars and decided "to go to the edge of this clearing and see if there is anything around."

After a while, through binoculars, he saw an animal standing "with its head lowered into the tall grass."

“I took the tripod out of the car, uncovered the carbine, loaded it and peered into the scope.

Due to poor visibility through the scope's thermal imager, I saw at a distance of about 250 m a silhouette of an artiodactyl, which looks like a large wild boar.

I fired two shots towards the silhouette of the animal, and after a while the silhouette fell.

After that I left my weapon and tripod and went to the place where the animal fell.

When I got there, I found the body of an elk in a clearing in the middle of bumps and tall dry grass, ”Rashkin said.

There were knives and an ax in the car, it took some time to cut the carcass on the spot, the deputy added.

After that, he drove to the house of friends to ask for help loading the elk carcass into the car - Rashkin's friend Alexander Gnoshev went back to the animal with him.

After they loaded the carcass into the trunk, the car stalled.

After a while, a group of people drove up to them "with their headlights and cameras on", and when they saw the carcass of an elk, they said that hunting in this place was illegal.

Also on russian.rt.com Carbine with a night vision sight: a hunting ticket in the name of Rashkin was found near the place of illegal elk hunting

“I realized that I was a victim of a coincidence.

I was misled by the information about the existence of legal and executed documents for the hunt.

As a result, people unknown to me took advantage of this and apparently participated in the provocation against me.

Based on these considerations, well, in the state in which I was, fearing for my friend Alexander, and in order not to accidentally set anyone up, I didn’t find anything better and blurted out that I had found the carcass of this elk, ”Rashkin admitted.

Earlier, the deputy, in a letter to the head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, announced his readiness to appear at the department in order to establish the circumstances of the incident.

Recall that at the end of October, the Committee for Hunting and Fisheries of the Saratov Region filed a complaint with the police against Valery Rashkin on suspicion of illegal hunting. 

The committee said that on October 28, inspectors heard shots on the hunting grounds of the Saratov Regional Society of Hunters and Fishermen.

Arriving at the place, they saw a car in which there were Rashkin and one more person, and in the trunk there was a buttered carcass of an elk.

Valery Rashkin himself initially stated that he and a friend found the carcass of an animal in the forest.

Not far from the car, the police found a weapon permit and a hunting ticket in the name of Valery Rashkin, as well as a hunting carbine, tripod and cartridges.

Earlier, a RT source in the district Society of Hunters and Fishermen told the details of the incident, noting that the inspectors watched as Rashkin and his companion loaded the carcass into the trunk.

“They were not allowed to leave: the police officers blocked them with a UAZ car.

Rashkin was driving.

We were waiting for them to load the meat into the car - they would load a criminal article for themselves.

We watched with a thermal imager where they were loading, in which car, and this particular car was accepted, ”the source said.

On the fact of the incident, a criminal case was initiated under Art.

258 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("Illegal hunting"), the investigation of which was transferred to the central office of the Investigative Committee.

The day before, the State Duma received a petition from the Prosecutor General's Office to deprive Valery Rashkin of parliamentary immunity in connection with the case of illegal hunting.

According to the chairman of the lower house of parliament Vyacheslav Volodin, the State Duma may discuss this issue at a meeting on November 25.