On November 25, 2021, a tragedy occurred at the Listvyazhnaya mine, which is located in the Kemerovo region, which shook the whole of Russia. As a result of the fire that broke out in the mine, 51 people died, another 88 were injured, including miners and rescuers who arrived at the scene of the state of emergency. Who will be punished for the mass death of people?

Immediately after the accident, employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and law enforcement agencies arrived at the scene. The general director of the mine, his first deputy and the head of the section where the fire broke out were immediately detained. On the same day, the investigation did not provide significant information. All official reports boiled down to the fact that either “smoke” or “state of emergency” occurred at the mine. It is clear that this was not true.

Rescue vehicles near the Listvyazhnaya mine

Who is guilty?

The miners themselves, who worked at the mine, became more talkative. They said that the tragedy was expected and could have been prevented. But the authorities back-to-back ignored the danger to their subordinates. A few days before the tragedy, employees of the enterprise detected an increased concentration of methane in the coal lava. If the normal indicator is up to 2% of methane, then at that time the indicator was 7%. This meant that an explosion could occur at any moment. One slightest spark is enough, and tragedy cannot be avoided. The management was informed about the danger, but did not react in any way. As the miners recall, immediately after that they forced the fitters to go down, but they refused.

In the next few days after the tragedy, the investigation went to the national level. The situation was even taken up personally by Vladimir Putin. On December 2, the President of Russia held a meeting convened due to an emergency at the mine. The owner of the enterprise, Mikhail Fedyaev, loudly declared that he was ready to take full responsibility. At the same time, he added that outwardly everything was fine, and no one could know about the problems. Allegedly, the management of the mine has never saved on fire safety, and the tragedy is just a series of accidents.

Is it so? Obviously not. An explosion in a mine, followed by a fire, is an exceptional series of irresponsibility and negligence. Employees of Listvyazhnaya recalled that there was no control over the level of meth at all. The “working” sensors were either faulty or simply sealed.

Holding SDS

Listvyazhnaya Mine LLC is part of the SDS holding. The owner of the group of companies is businessman Mikhail Fedyaev. According to Forbes, Fedyaev’s fortune is $550 million.

The holding “Siberian Business Union” includes many enterprises, from the production of alcohol and products, ending with minerals.

Although Fedyaev is a fairly non-public oligarch, his son Pavel, on the contrary, is a well-known personality in Kuzbass. In the current convocation, he is a deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation. In 2016, on Victory Day, Pavel Fedyaev managed to get into an unpleasant scandal. From him, veterans received gift packages – a postcard and a bottle of vodka.

It is clear that such gifts could hardly please anyone, but it turned out that even the same vodka was made at a plant that is part of the SDS holding. A few days after the arrest of Fedyaev Sr., the possibility was even discussed that the son would resign his mandate and take control of the business into his own hands. But this did not happen.

In addition to the political career of Fedyaev’s son, he himself aimed for the post of governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. During all the visits of both Putin and Medvedev, Fedyaev accompanied them.

SDS Holding is quite a successful enterprise. As we have already indicated, its group includes diversified industries. As for the Listvyazhnaya mine, in recent years it has been generating good revenue.

Mine revenue

But there are nuances here. Despite the fact that in recent years the company’s revenue has grown rapidly, profits have fallen. How can this be – do not ask, but it is obvious that there are 2 options: either there were some huge expenses (for example, new modern equipment), or the proceeds settled in someone’s pocket. Whatever it was, the mine ended the calendar year with a deficit of 2.4 billion rubles.

mine profit

It is obvious that the state of emergency greatly influenced the further development of the asset. Now there is no need to talk about such revenues. However, the mine is working.

Crime and Punishment

On December 15, 2021, 3 weeks after the tragedy, information appeared about the detention of Mikhail Fedyaev. The investigation charged him with violating industrial safety requirements, which resulted in the death of 51 people. The article is really serious, the boundary punishment for it is 10 years in prison. The court sent the oligarch to a pre-trial detention center until February 14. Together with him, the head of SDS-Coal, Gennady Alekseev, the technical director of the company, Anton Yakutov, and the chief engineer of the Listvyazhnaya mine, Anatoly Lobanov, were detained.

But there is one problem. If we are talking about the officials of the mine, then everything is clear – they are really responsible for safety at the enterprise. As for the owner, the question is more complicated. On the one hand, he owns a hazardous production, but on the other hand, he is not an official responsible for safety. Therefore, the decision to send Fedyaev to a pre-trial detention center is more political than legal. According to some information, such a step was caused by a personal instruction from the head of the Investigative Committee, Bastrykin, who wanted to earn political balls in a criminal case. In addition, there were also rumors in the business elites that Fedyaev’s partners in SDS would take over the enterprises. But now is not the time, and simply raiding one of the largest holdings of Kuzbass will not work. Therefore, a major scandal did not come out of it. The businessman quietly stayed in jail for 8 months

The arrest of Fedyaev did not last long. On June 15, the court released him on bail. Investigators continue to investigate the criminal case, but it seems that the general resonance of the tragic events has already faded, which means that in the end the perpetrators will not be brought to justice.