“We lived on our territory for thousands of years before the arrival of the Russians, and our traditions, customs and religions have been wiped out. We are persecuted, we are losing our land and our natural resources, and today our fight for indigenous peoples is being denied freedom”, Mark Zdor, representative of the Chukotka people, courageously testified before the Organisation for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Warsaw at the beginning of October. Finding a witness to the ecological and human disaster caused by the Beringovsky mine to speak before an international assembly is no mean feat, given the many threats he faces. His journey and testimony are the fruit of investigative work by the NGO Arctida, which is headed by Ilya Shumannov, now in exile. The latter tells the story.
Ilya Shumannov has been in exile since his inclusion this summer on Russia’s federal wanted list. He is CEO of Arctida and also director of Transparency International Russia. His work focuses on tackling corruption in Russia by investigating money laundering and cross-border corruption as the “golden visas” cases. He has been behind amendments to Russian federal law relating to contract systems. The threats to which he is exposed are part of “a wider strategy of intimidation aimed at dismantling organizations that promote transparency and challenge corruption”, according to Transparency International.
You were able to investigate remotely and even dispatch a group of activists from Australia last summer. What’s going on in the Beringovsky region of Chukotka?
The tundra is quite rich aound the Alkatvaam river, there is a lot of berries, animals, fish, etc. However, when the coal mine started to be exploited, the tundra became covered in coal dust, turning black. The fish have disappeared from the waters, but if you still can manage to catch one and slice it open, you’ll find areas of black discoloration. They have a year-round production process, and Scania trucks drive back and forth the ports and the coal mine. There’s no general extraction mechanism in place to protect the environment, like a tarp over the bed of a truck, and it produces a lot of dust — yet nobody seems to care.
This is no ordinary coal, but coking coal, a specific type that is quite expensive compared with ordinary one. The mine is also very close to the port and to the logistics route. There are two sides in the Chukotka region, the Arctic, the Pacific and in between, the Bering Strait separating Russia and the United States. This gives to the site a lot of references and it’s possible to reduce the costs associated with extraction and transport of the production outside Russia, and therefore to obtain a large number of dividends.
The numerous pollutions and processes underway are destroying the entire territory where the indigenous populations live. If an activist wants to raise his voice about environmental pollution the local administration pressure them. Indigenious Community of Alkatvaam river used to live of fishing, but now they have to rely on shops which are dependent to the Russian food supply chain, and the port belongs to the mining company. If you have tensions with the administration of the coal mines that own this port, the delivery time for your supplies can be several months, or even several years. That’s why they said ‘please don’t raise your voice’, and that’s blackmailing.
But if they need to buy some food at the shop, can they work in the mines to get income?
No, that’s a different issue. They are not invited to work in the factory or the coal mine. Teams of coal workers come from other parts of Russia for several months, but the local people are not given the opportunity to work there. The administration sees them as a burden.’You can dance, you can fish, but no more.’ They claim the locals are often drunk, lack knowledge, and speak poor Russian. I asked the representatives of local communities directly about this, and they acknowledged there was a problem.
In the Warsaw meeting, I was sitting at the side of Mark Zdor, one of the independent activists, and in fact he’s part of the Alkatvaam community, he’s one of the people who has been affected. His life has also been destroyed because of the Australian Tiger Real Coal, it was very complicated to find Mark, to ask him and get his agreement to take part in the conference. He’s not an English speaker, he speaks Russian, and he was very nervous about the consequences of all this, but now he’s in a safe place, and he can communicate about the problems of the community, he’s in a more or less safe situation.
Why did you investigate this topic?
We had received signals from local communities about the suspicious activity of the Beringovsky mine, pollution and environmental risks, but Russia’s far east and far north are opaque regions in the eyes of the public. We know a lot about the north-west, thanks in part to Norway, Finland’s interest, proximity to Europe and the concentration of economic players, trade routes and even Arctic populations. But Chukotka is still poorly documented because, in a way, there is a lack of sources and a very limited population.
We became interested in this subject because we were in contact with media and advocacy groups in Australia who were asking questions about the Australian company Tiger Real Coal. I think it started at the beginning of the summer. They wanted to know more about this company’s activities in Russia, and it turns out that we already had information on this subject because it may have been linked to another of our investigations.
What kind of investigation ?
Our first area of research is corruption, because it is a very problematic focus in Russia. The second is the subject of sanctions avoidance. It’s a very complicated issue for the geopolitical and international agenda. Russian-Australian relations are very complex to disentangle. There are some sanctions against Russian companies and products, but nobody knows if they are effective and nobody cares. As it’s not on the table, we want to raise this subject, and check whether companies respect the sanctions or not.
The interesting point related to this project is that the hidden shareholder of this company was a Ukrainian oligarch, in the circle of Viktor Yanukovych, former president of Ukraine, who was removed from office after the Revolution of Dignity in 2014. This guy moved to Russia, because the government was supporting Viktor Yanukovych and his circle. This was not an ideological choice, but the Russian authorities could provide something in favour of these individuals, something like ‘you support the Russian agenda and we can give you some coal mines. Far to the east, far to the north, but you can still get that profit from these deals’. These people make very complicated offshore schemes.
If there was no problem with indigenous communities or environmental pollution, nobody would have revealed this information, but because the story has become a spotlight, we decided to dive inside and communicate our information about Cypriot companies.
It has emerged that shareholders and beneficiaries of the companies are receiving money through the payment of royalties. I’ve been a professional on hidden assets for a long time, and this royalty payment is one of the most complicated schemes in the corporate market. Usually, the owners, directors and beneficiaries of the companies are followed, but the financial flows are not very well tracked. We discovered these royalty payments and found the beneficiaries, namely Sergei Arbuzov, a former director of the russian national bank, Aleksandr Onischenko, a former member of parliament, and Sergei Kurchenko, a friend of the son of Yanukovych and one of Yanukovych’s closest oligarchs.
What’s the link with Tiger Real Coal?
For Tiger Real Coal, the starting point was a Russian company. This company was owned by the father of Russia’s Deputy Minister for the Environment and Natural Resources, Svetlana Radchenko, who was sacked after our investigation, having held the post for 10 years. The consequences of our investigative report were to dismiss this woman, who was important and influential, but our report shed light on this agreement, on power, and on the illicit financial dividends that her family received as part of this agreement.
As far as environmental pollution is concerned, all the Australian companies, even though they have social and other responsibilities, don’t care about the local communities and pollution, nor the territories, nor the existing operating methods. We wanted to know what the communities thought and they told us that the companies didn’t care, so we decided to come and have a look. We sent a team to Chukotka, not because we have a lot of money, or because we have friends who want to go there, but because we have to see it for ourselves.
I can already say that all the pressure we put on with Australian activists, human rights activists and the media, Tiger Real Coal has withdraw from the Russian market, but they have sold their mines to Russian companies that are owned by a partner of a son of a high-ranking Putin partner Nicolai Patruchev, who is now the “owner” of the Russian Arctic, he controls it from the military sector, the security sector, the shipbuilding sector, and politics.
Are Australians still receiving or giving money to the mine?
In February 2024, Tiger Real Coal announced amendments to the royalty payments, committing to pay 4.5 million to the offshore entity by mid-2025, but the withdrawal from the Russian market came after. I think they didn’t want to withdraw but to continue, because it’s a very good project to make a profit. This means that this Australian company has been sold to an affiliate of Mr Patrushev. I’m not saying we can be proud of that, but at least Australian companies are no longer continuing to pay taxes to the Russian budget that is fuelling the war in Ukraine. This means a great deal for the integrity of the Western vault, because if you impose sanctions on the Russian authorities, you cannot, on the other hand, fuel the war with your taxes, your activities…
What is the “survival strategy for indigenious” as said Mark Zdor in this speach ?
It’s complicated due to the war in Ukraine, the question of the right to self-governance, and the demand for the ability to make decisions. It’s not just about giving them money; it’s about granting them the power to make decisions. This is about federalism, about sharing not only obligations but also rights. They have to pay taxes, but they are denied the right to compensation from the companies exploiting their resources. Moreover, these companies are destroying the environment and harming the local people in Chukotka. The only way forward is to provide them with platforms to raise these issues both globally and within Russia, giving them more rights and involvement in decision-making.
I am from the northwest of Russia. In the north of Europe, I believe they already have these rights there. There’s a global understanding between the minority and the majority populations about providing rights to indigenous people, but not in Russia. Only a few regions can be proud of their fight for these rights. For example, Yakutia, one of the largest Arctic regions, receives 25% of the profits from the diamond company ALROSA, which goes to the Yakutian national fund and the local communities Uluses. This money is then used for social projects. Although there are still examples of corruption, and unefficiency, it’s a step toward fairness because a quarter of the diamond revenue goes back to the people.
In contrast, in Chukotka, there are only thousands of native people compared to the millions in Yakutia. Yet, they should still have the same rights. While this is not a “silver bullet,” it is part of the solution. In the United States, for example, gas companies still operating in the Arctic involve the local population in their work. The local communities lobby for these companies to continue extracting resources because of the jobs, support for the community, and tax revenue. But that’s not the case in Chukotka, as Mark Zdor says in Warsaw.
Interviewed by Camille Lin, Polar Journal AG
For more details, here is the expedition and the investigation of Arctida: On the Black Shores and Black Deal.
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