The Washington Post - USA (2021-11-23)

A12 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 23 , 2021

BY ROBYN DIXON

moscow — Caught cutting up a
dead moose at night in a forest,
Moscow’s top Communist is fac-
ing criminal charges of illegal
hunting and the threat of losing
his parliamentary seat, and even
his career.
His defenders say it’s all about
Kremlin payback.
Valery Rashkin, 66, leader of
the Moscow Communist Party,
was arrested in the middle of the
night Oct. 29 for allegedly shoot-
ing a female moose illegally, the
Interfax news agency reported,
and could be stripped of parlia-
mentary immunity Thursday.
He has been at odds with
Russian authorities for challeng-
ing the results of September
parliamentary elections and re-
jecting the Kremlin’s pet project,
online voting, a system that crit-
ics say will promote electoral
fraud.
Communist lawmaker Nina
Ostanina, said the charges were
“a political special operation”
that was “designed to intimidate
all patriots” who offer an alterna-
tive to fat cats and crooks in
President Vladimir Putin’s Rus-
sia.
“It is so blunt and clumsy that
it is baffling,” she added.
Rashkin, however, did himself
no favors with shifting accounts.
At first, he said he had “found”
the animal dead. But state televi-
sion coverage showed him being
confronted by police late at night
last month looking confused and
evasive, standing next to his car
and a pile of bloody meat. An ax
and knives were found on the
scene. He did not have a hunting
license.
On Thursday, he admitted that
he had “blurted out” a lie — the
first thing that came into his
head.
“I was tired,” he explained.
The scandal could end his
career. The State Duma, or lower
house of parliament, meets
Thursday to vote on stripping
him of parliamentary immunity,
opening the way for prosecution.
Rashkin has been quoted as
saying he is sure the vote will go
against him. He declined re-
quests from The Washington
Post for comment.
“Rashkin was very active pro-
testing about the results of on-

line voting in Moscow. Rashkin is

very active and bright, and I

think those in power had lots of

complaints about him regardless

of recent events,” Communist

Party spokesman Alexander

Yushchenko said in an interview.

He said more than 100 Com-

munist Party members around

the country were arrested for

protesting the results of Septem-

ber’s parliamentary elections.

To be fair, Rashkin’s alleged

crime s eems to pale beside a June

scandal in which a member of

Putin’s United Russia party, Alex-

ander Kramarenko, posed with

the carcasses of hundreds of

shot-dead wild geese and ducks

laid on the snow, spelling out

“Chukotka 2021” with a heart —

the name of his home region

across the Bering Strait from

Alaska.

After he posted the ghastly

photo online and then deleted it,

he was charged with similar

counts of illegal hunting. Krama-

renko’s membership in United

Russia was suspended pending

the outcome of the c ase. No other

information about his position

has emerged.

According to analysts, Rash-

kin’s arrest and the accompany-

ing crush of state media coverage

is designed to send a message

that opposition politicians, even

from the tame parties permitted

by the Kremlin, can face ruin if

they are too outspoken.

“In Rashkin’s case, even in

terms of the crazy Russian VIP

hunting, he did nothing wrong,”

said independent analyst Kon-

stantin G aaze, a sociologist at t he

Moscow School of Social and

Economic Sciences.

“In this year and the previous

year, there were a number of

cases involving United Russia

MPs and United Russia officials

in ugly and crazy hunting epi-

sodes,” he added. “Now they’re

jumping on Rashkin to show it’s

not only United Russia MPs who

do evil and cruel things to ani-

mals.”

In Russia, the only permitted

opposition parties are typically

in the Kremlin’s pocket, analysts

say. To them, Rashkin’s crime

was less about the moose and

more about the fact that he

crossed a red line i n opposing the

Kremlin.

“It looks like a planned action

against Communists,” said An-

drei Kolesnikov, an analyst with

the Carnegie Moscow Center.

“It’s a message to them that

they must behave properly, that

they can’t be too active in their

protestations like Rashkin was.

... They must follow the rules
obediently, and those who do not
behave properly will be persecut-
ed seriously.”
Rashkin led street protests
after the September election re-
sults showed many opposition
candidates, including Commu-
nists, far ahead in paper ballot-
ing, only to have their leads
overturned in online results —
with electronic votes impossible
to verify, according to election
observers.
Rashkin told a protest rally in
Moscow’s Pushkin Square on

Sept. 25 that there was “colossal

fraud” in the election. That put

him in contradiction with party

leader Gennady Zyuganov, who

hasn’t posed a serious threat to

the Kremlin since 1996; obeys

the rules, mostly; and benefits

with recognition and a state

salary.

Protesters at the rally chanted

“Putin is a thief!” and police

dispersed the demonstrators af-

ter an hour by playing loud

music.

The past year in Russia has

seen a mounting toll in arrests,

jail terms and repression of ac-

tivists, journalists, human rights

lawyers, right groups and

banned political groups like

those of jailed opposition leader

Alexei Navalny.

Rashkin’s arrest marks a new

phase in Putin’s move to hammer

out a tougher form of authoritar-

ian rule — targeting anyone who

challenges his grip on power.

Russia’s wild hunting culture

was captured in the slapstick

199 5 Russian movie hit “Pecu-

liarities of the National Hunt,” in

which a group of drunken hunt-

ing buddies stagger through

many chaotic, vodka-sodden

misadventures.

Rashkin admits that his

friends “had a good party” the

day of the moose shooting near

Saratov on the Volga River, but

added: “I don’t drink.”

A friend of Rashkin’s who was

there, Vladimir Matrosov, told

pro-Kremlin Russian television

last week that nobody in the

group was planning to hunt. “We

drank, and drank hard,” he said,

adding that Rashkin never both-

ered to get a hunting license.

Rashkin made his admission

on video this week, wearing a

purple tie with an untidy knot

and a patriotic lapel pin. He said

he shot the moose cow by acci-

dent, mistaking it for a boar, and

promised to replace it by buying

a moose cow and releasing it into

the wild.

Rashkin refused an alcohol

test by police at the time of his

arrest, sure that he would be

framed with a fake reading, he

said. According to his account,

Matrosov was supposed to have

arranged a hunting license.

Vladimir Shabliy, a hunting

inspector, said it was almost

impossible to confuse a moose

with a wild boar when hunting,

the Izvestia newspaper reported

Friday.

Yushchenko, the Communist

spokesman, said the wall-to-wall

state television coverage of Rash-

kin’s case was a political maneu-

ver to distract from inequality,

falling wages, greedy oligarchs, a

failing health system and busi-

nesses going under because of

the pandemic.

“That is why political technol-

ogists who create content on

state channels are trying to dis-

tract people’s attention from the

social problems,” he said. “Actu-

ally, Rashkin’s case is really noth-

ing.

“If he violated the law while

hunting, then it should take up

about 15 seconds of television

news, not m ore.” Instead, he said,

it got more airtime than the

Group of 20 summit in Rome

that Putin joined by video link.

[email protected]

Natasha Abbakumova contributed to

this report.

In Putin’s Russia, d ead moose makes for a lively scandal

ANATOLIY ZHDANOV/SIPA USA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Valery Rashkin, h ead of Moscow’s Communist Party, at a Sept. 20 rally to protest the results of Russia’s parliamentary elections. Since

then, he has been charged for allegedly shooting a female moose illegally. Analysts say the case is really about Kremlin political payback.

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