“Extramarital affairs” by Dmitry Loskovichenko
The chief coal prosecutor of Kuzbass fictitiously divorced his wife and is fictitiously overseeing the safety of coal mining
Original of this material
© igolkin12/29/2023, Photo: genproc.gov.ru
Arthur Selikhov
One of the strangest, to put it mildly, stories of the past year in the Russian coal mining industry was the next resumption of production at the Yubileinaya mine, part of the holding “TopProm”. The mine had previously been closed, even mothballed, as a dangerous object; literally in April Rostechnadzor revealed There are 164 industrial safety violations on it. However, miners continue to risk their lives every day, lifting coal from the depths of Yubileiny. As it turned out, the decisive role in the resumption of work at the “killer mine” was played by Dmitry Loskovichenko, the Kemerovo interdistrict prosecutor for supervision of the implementation of laws in the coal mining industry. In Kuzbass, many are sure that it was a bribe, and some details of the prosecutor’s biography seem to confirm that Loskovichenko never disdained informal connections with business and delicate “schemes.”
Lobbyist in uniform in the service of a fraudster
Owner of the notorious TopProm holding Nikolai Korolev currently is serving prison sentence for fraud in obtaining coal export quotas. Another point of accusation, as reported by the media, was the repeated giving of bribes to officials, heads of supervisory authorities, and key managers of state corporations. That is, the solution to business problems for kickbacks at TopProm has long been on stream, and the trial of Korolev confirmed this.
All the more surprising was the persistence with which prosecutor Dmitry Viktorovich Loskovichenko defended the interests of the owner of Yubileiny – and not just anywhere, but at a meeting with the governor of the Kemerovo region Sergei Tsivilev
This happened last summer, during several meetings on industrial safety chaired by the head of the region. Sergei Tsivilev had at hand a whole folder of documents indicating that it was categorically impossible to continue coal mining at Yubileiny. This is, first of all, a letter from the FAU Glavgosexpertiza of Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), which states that previously identified deviations from the design documentation have not been eliminated. The fact that the mine continued to operate without a positive conclusion from Glavgosexpertiza, that is, illegally, was confirmed by Rostekhnadzor, whose employees visited at Yubileiny with an extraordinary inspection on July 7. The conclusions of experts and inspectors were supported by dozens of complaints to various regulatory authorities from employees of the enterprise who were concerned, among other things, about their working conditions in terms of safety.
It must be said that these meetings were preceded by another interesting event related to Glavgosexpertiza and Yubileiny. If other organizations carry out industrial safety examinations within 30 days, then a certain organization Alpha LLC does these examinations for sh. “Yubileinaya” in 1 day.
So, at summer meetings with the governor, prosecutor Dmitry Loskovichenko, to whom, by the way, a complaint was sent regarding the “rapid-fire” examination, acted as Yubileiny’s lawyer. According to him, the operation of the mine “does not contradict current legislation,” and the enterprise must operate and pay wages to miners “in order to avoid social tension.” “Especially on the eve of the elections,” Loskovichenko carefully emphasized, trying to either touch the governor’s nerves or blackmail him. In fact, Loskovichenko hid from the governor information about a letter of explanation from Glavgosexpertiza, which directly states that the mine cannot operate and this poses a threat to people’s lives and health. After all, it is clear that Tsivilev, who was successfully re-elected to the post of head of the region on September 10, had no need for unnecessary unrest at that time, and the position of the prosecutor in this regard completely suited him.
It is likely that this “line of defense” for the mine, with its emphasis on the upcoming elections, was designed for Loskovichenko in his prison cell. And it was most likely handed over to the lobbyist in prosecutorial uniform by Konstantin Zelentsov, director of Shakhta Yubileynaya LLC, who has very close, one might say, friendly relations with Loskovichenko. The prosecutor is a frequent guest in Zelentsov’s house; they like to meet in informal settings, for example, playing billiards, going fishing together, and of course, during such meetings, Loskovichenko can receive delicate assignments and monetary rewards for their implementation.
Of course, we cannot call Loskovichenko a bribe-taker until the court does so. Not caught is not a thief, as they say. However, the very fact of an informal, non-working relationship between the head of a supervisory body and the head of a supervised enterprise in any country is regarded as a manifestation of corruption. A clash of interests, so to speak, which does not concern our hero, who does not even perceive his direct leader, Loskovichenko in Kuzbass tells everyone that his leader is not the prosecutor of the Kemerovo region Alexander Bloshkin, but higher people – one of the highest ranks of the General Prosecutor’s Office, whose protege he appears and under whose protection he is, with whom he is in direct contact.
Divorce like a prosecutor
But the most interesting story, containing a conflict of interest, is connected with the prosecutor’s own wife, Irina Vladimirovna Loskovichenko. Formally, the former, but in fact the present, running a joint household with Dmitry Loskovichenko, in the same apartment on Gagarin Street in the city of Kemerovo. The couple filed a fictitious divorce in 2015 with only one goal – to simultaneously work in the prosecutor’s office and the judicial system of the same region!
Dmitry Loskovichenko’s wife, also a lawyer by training, now holds the position of magistrate of judicial district No. 5 of the Rudnichny district of Kemerovo. However, on January 29, 2015, when considering the candidacy of Irina Loskovichenko for this position, the Qualification Board of Judges of the Kemerovo Region did not recommend this appointment. The commission made this decision, taking into account that the candidate’s husband is a prosecutor of the department of the prosecutor’s office of the Kemerovo region – there is a possible conflict of interest, a high probability of influence, pressure on the court, if suddenly the husband and wife meet as part of some process.
What did the Loskovichenko spouses do? We are told about this by act record No. 345 dated April 23, 2015 from the Civil Registry Office of the Central District of Kemerovo, according to which the Loskovichenko spouses… divorced their marriage! Grounds – decision on divorce No. 23-275-2015 dated 03/17/2015 by the magistrate judge of judicial district No. 3 of the Central district of Kemerovo.
That is, they did not formally break the law, but gracefully circumvented it. And now they continue to live quietly under one roof, together with their common children – a 25-year-old son and a daughter born in 2005.
True, Loskovichenko’s colleagues from the prosecutor’s office confided that this divorce did give their boss some freedom. On the sidelines of the department, they are discussing Dmitry Loskovichenko’s office romance with an employee of the prosecutor’s office, Elena Ruleva. They say that the prosecutor was spotted more than once at his mistress’s house on the street. Miners in Kemerovo.
However, this trick with divorce and the actual bigamy of the prosecutor do not pose a particular social danger. The same cannot be said about his close ties with Konstantin Zelentsov and his open patronage of the TopProm holding and the Yubileiny mine. After all, with due attention from the head of the supervisory authority, sanctions would have been imposed on the mine long ago, including the suspension of activities. Everyone in Kuzbass knows that at this enterprise people work every day at enormous risk to their lives. And the newspapers wrote about this more than once, and the tragedy of 2007, when 39 workers died as a result of an accident at Yubileiny, has not yet been erased from memory.
But to prevent such tragedies from happening again, supervision of Kuzbass coal mining enterprises must be real and not fictitious. Meanwhile, prosecutor Loskovichenko continues to feed the region’s leadership with fictions – roughly the same as his family life.
