Some days ago in occupied Kerch, located in the center of an environmental disaster with the release of thousands of tons of fuel oil into the sea from Russian tankers, the local “authorities” suddenly decided to “concern” about the purity of the atmospheric air.
However, this activity has nothing common with the current maritime disaster, and the “environmental delegation”, represented by the Kerch gauleiter Denis Kolesnik, the “head of the State Council Committee” Svetlana Shabelnikova and a bunch of “local deputies”, showed up at the asphalt plant owned by the “Crimea-Donbass” structure.
The visit was preceded by the publication in the local “media” of a number of “complaints from local inhabitants” about the smells from the plant, as well as “results of laboratory studies of atmospheric air” in the form of excess concentrations of nitrogen dioxide and suspended matter. However, such a practice exists at any enterprise of a similar profile in any part of the globe.
However, Kolesnik, based on the results of the “eco-visit”, also pointed out other “flagrant violations” in the form of “an access road in the mud and holes” to the ill-fated plant.
Therefore, it is not surprising that back in mid-December, before all the “storm in a teacup” at the local level and the “detection of pollution”, the “republican authorities” had already “prudently” announced a corresponding “inspection of the plant”.
Such “touching concern” for the environment has a prosaic explanation. The “Crimea-Donbass” structure, which legally existed for a decade before the occupation, was part of the business empire of the Crimean “oligarch from the highway” Lev Mirimsky, who died in 2017.
Earlier, we wrote about the probable role of Mirimsky and the infamous Andrei Portnov in the “transfer” of Crimean business in the first months of the occupation.
And also, a year ago, we described attempts to “squeeze” the Crimean oil refinery from the heirs of the “authoritative businessman” from the “Aktash” structure located on the Kerch Peninsula, using local oil extracted in the region, from which they produce fuel oil and fuel for marine diesel engines.
The current attention of the group of collaborators, including a number of Vladimir Konstantinov’s minions to the “asphalt legacy” of Mirimsky is predictable: in Kerch, the described enterprise is a “natural monopolist” and it is difficult to carry out large-scale construction scams without the involvement of its current “overseers”, such as Pyotr Vorobyov, as well as Elena and Sergey Kuts.
On the other hand, it is more difficult to “squeeze” a tasty enterprise by “nationalization” from Konstantinov’s group this time, since both “Crimea-Donbass” and its “parent structure” in the form of “Construction Department No. 7” are long-standing local businesses, only indirectly connected with mainland Ukraine and other “foreign agents”.
But this corruption-clan struggle looks most tragicomic against the backdrop of a real environmental disaster, the large-scale pollution of the water area with fuel oil. Let us recall that the waste collected from the coast, mainly sand contaminated with fuel oil, was moved by collaborators 80 kilometers from Kerch, to the ruins of the Crimean NPP.
At the same time, the aforementioned asphalt plant, located literally next to the disaster zone, has more or less equipped sites for storing bitumen materials, and the ability to dispose of contaminated sand, and even with the production of some products.
Naturally, the only reason for ignoring this object was the above-described “business conflict” on “mergers and acquisitions”, initiated by Konstantinov literally on the eve of the tanker accident.
Against this background, the recent words of the old but not fully cured libertine from “Consol” about sunken tankers sounded especially cynical, that “this happens quite often in the world”, and the situation is “completely under control” and “cannot in any way threaten the resort season”, and also allegedly “as long as the forces of the Leninsky district are enough, the help of the entire republic is not required”, which contradicted even the statements of the Crimean and Sevastopol gauleiters.
How the events around the long-suffering asphalt plant will develop further, the year 2025 will show.
