Woman from Grozny publicly reprimanded for her video criticizing new airport construction

Marina Sotskova, a Russian-speaking resident of the Grozny village of Vozrozhdeniye, filmed a video in which she expressed her concern that hazardous waste would be dumped into a local river through a pipe that was being laid from the airport. After the video was disseminated in messengers, Muslim Zaipullaev, Chechen Minister of Construction and Housing and Utilities, met Marina Sotskova and stated that the contents of the pipe would not harm the environment.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that the practice of public apologies, adopted in Chechnya at the suggestion of republic’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov, has also spread to other regions of Russia.

The report, in which Marina Sotskova was publicly reprimanded, was published on the “ChGTK Grozny” page on Instagram*. Journalist Khava Edieva called the Marina Sotskova’s words a fiction and said that not waste, but water from atmospherical precipitation will flow through the pipe.

“The Chechen Republic has been a leader in the federal cleanliness rating for many years. The idea that the construction of the largest modernized airport in the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD) may pollute the environment with sewage waste is at least bewildering,” said journalist Khava Edieva.

Muslim Zaipullaev, Chechen Minister of Construction and Housing and Utilities, has also explained that there is no environmental threat to the Vozrozhdeniye village, since the territory of the new airport will accommodate no chemical production facilities.

*On March 21, 2022, the Tverskoi Court of Moscow banned the activities in Russia of the Meta Company, owning the Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, in connection with extremist activities.