Deputies sent to the special operation zone were allowed not to file income declarations

State Duma deputies who were on business trips in the special military operation zone may not submit income declarations this year. This was told to Vedomosti by one of the parliamentarians who was on such a business trip, and confirmed by deputy Viktor Vodolatsky, who has been in charge of the humanitarian mission of United Russia in the LPR since the beginning of the special operation.

Two parliamentarians also confirmed this information: they refer to the presidential decree of December 29, 2022, according to which people participating in hostilities or sent to the DPR, LPR, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions are exempted from providing information about income and expenses.

The interlocutor on Okhotny Ryad points out that the declaration campaign is still underway, so it is too early to say who has already reported and who has not. But he notes that those who were sent to the special operation zone really have the opportunity not to submit a declaration. Another interlocutor clarifies that there was no special order from the leadership of the lower house of parliament or its apparatus in this regard.

Vedomosti sent a request to the press service of the State Duma.

One of the deputies, who arranged a business trip to the special operation zone in the State Duma and has been there for a long time, says that he has not yet thought about filling out the declaration or not: “Nothing has changed in it since 2021. There’s just no time to fill it in, I’m busy with other things.”

Vodolatsky told Vedomosti that he is almost constantly in the territory of new regions, in particular in the LPR. “Given that I am constantly there, and for the declaration you need to collect certificates, I physically cannot do this,” he explained. But four more deputies, who were also on long business trips to the new territories, told Vedomosti that they had submitted their declarations. “It’s easier to submit a declaration,” one of them remarked.

Otari Arshba, Chairman of the State Duma Commission on Controlling the Reliability of Information on Income, said at a plenary meeting in the State Duma on March 22 that 260 deputies had submitted their declarations for 2022. He asked the remaining colleagues to report on the income of the remaining colleagues as soon as possible. A week remains until April 1, he recalled at a meeting of the lower house of parliament.

Arshba did not answer calls from Vedomosti.

United Russia reported that Dmitry Sablin, Dmitry Khubezov, Sergey Sokol, Oleg Golikov, Oleg Kolesnikov, Evgeny Pervyshov, Alexander Borodai, Vitaly Milonov and Badma Bashankaev were among the deputies who “participated in the special operation” – they were sent to the special operation zone. The status and legal consequences of the business trip to these territories of parliamentarians were not deciphered.

In addition, all parliamentary parties assigned their deputies to each of the new regions. The State Duma also sent its representatives to the regions: Vodolatsky in the LPR, Sablin in the DPR, Andrey Krasov in the Zaporozhye region, and Gleb Khor in the Kherson region.

The presidential decree of December 29, 2022 stated that during the period of the special operation, military personnel, law enforcement officers participating in the special operation or performing tasks related to its conduct, “persons sent (seconded) to perform tasks” in the DPR, LPR, Zaporozhye and Kherson region do not provide information on income if such an obligation is assigned to them by law. The same decree also fixed the provision that declarations, in principle, are not published in the public domain.

In January 2023, a law was adopted that consolidated one of the norms that appeared in the decree. Now information about the declarations of deputies and senators will be published in a “generalized form”, that is, without any personal data.

It follows from the text of the decree that it exempts everyone who is on an official business trip in the combat zone from filing a declaration, political lawyer Anton Rudakov agrees. “If we talk about State Duma deputies, then these are only those who left as volunteers – Khubezov, Sokol, etc. The rest have business trips for 2-3 days, this should not be considered. If they make them at all. Regionals often go back and forth without documents to take humanitarian aid,” he says.

The tasks with which the persons listed in the decree are sent to the combat zone do not have to be military, explains lawyer Anton Timchenko. “But [по логике указа] “declarative immunity” is not for those who simply drove to the special operation zone for the sake of personal PR in camouflage, this applies to those who were seconded [для выполнения специальных задач]”, he stressed.

Ekaterina Grobman contributed to the preparation of the article