Krasnodar deputy forgot Estonian - Newspaper Kommersant No. 50 (7495) of 03/24/2023

Krasnodar deputy forgot Estonian - Newspaper Kommersant No. 50 (7495) of 03/24/2023


The City Duma of Krasnodar on Thursday prematurely terminated the parliamentary powers of a member of the United Russia faction Alexei Berdnikov. At the same time, United Russia expelled him from the party. The reason for such severe sanctions was the violation of the ban on holding bank accounts abroad. As the now former deputy himself explained to Kommersant, 20 years ago his wife opened an account in one of the Estonian banks, which could not be closed at first because of the pandemic, and then because of a special military operation.

On March 23, the Presidium of the regional political council of United Russia expelled Aleksey Berdnikov, an entrepreneur and Krasnodar City Duma deputy, from the party for "committing actions that discredit the party." On the same day, the municipal parliament prematurely terminated his powers as a deputy of the seventh convocation. In the City Duma, Mr. Berdnikov served as deputy chairman of the committee on industry, transport and communications.

Governor of the Krasnodar Territory Veniamin Kondratyev sent a statement to the deputies about the termination of the powers of Alexei Berdnikov. As follows from the materials of the meeting, during the audit conducted by the control department of the regional administration, the facts of violation by the parliamentarian of the requirements of the federal law "On the prohibition of certain categories of persons to open and have accounts (deposits), keep cash and valuables in foreign banks located outside outside the territory of the Russian Federation, own and (or) use foreign financial instruments, as well as providing false declarations to them during the 2020 election campaign and for 2020-2021.

Alexey Berdnikov 42 years old, he is the founder and CEO of Cies Group LLC, operating in the field of information technology. In September 2020, he was elected to the City Duma of Krasnodar from United Russia in the 33rd single-mandate constituency with a score of 58.4% of the vote.

Mr. Berdnikov explained to Kommersant that this was an account in one of the Estonian banks opened in the name of his wife. According to the businessman, his wife is a native of this country and her relatives still live there. “About twenty years ago, the father of my future wife, whom I did not know yet, was going to buy an apartment in the village of Jõhvi. But the bank refused to issue a loan to the pensioner, so I had to make a deal and open a mortgage account in my wife's name,” said the now former parliamentarian.

According to him, the loan was repaid a long time ago, and several years ago the couple were going to close the account. “But we couldn’t get to Estonia, first due to covid restrictions, then in connection with a special military operation. It was only recently that I managed to close the account by proxy. The prosecutor's office, and then the control department of the regional administration, saw a violation of the law in the story with the bill,” Mr. Berdnikov said.

He agrees with the results of the audit, since he himself "showed short-sightedness, not delving into the details of the legislation." “I assumed that the ban on holding foreign accounts did not apply to me, since I work in the City Council on a non-permanent basis. Now I have clarified this information and realized that my wife and I were not supposed to have accounts in a foreign bank, since I served as deputy chairman of the committee in the city duma.”

The ex-deputy believes that there is no malicious intent in the story of depriving him of his status: “I am actively working in the district, which is considered one of the most difficult in the city, this is the Musical Microdistrict, a zone of spontaneous development. The voters know me and support me, but I don't think that anyone is intentionally removing me from public activities. It was just a combination of unfortunate circumstances."

Aleksei Berdnikov does not intend to appeal the decisions of the Krasnodar City Duma and the regional political council of United Russia. According to him, he would like to keep the deputy mandate, but the law does not allow it.

Anna Perova, Krasnodar



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