The article, which was published on Monday by the New Times magazine, is based on allegations made by former police officer Larisa Krepkova, who left the elite Zubr subdivision of the Russian Internal Ministry’s OMON security forces a year and a half ago due to illness. According to Krepkova, officers from the unit would travel to Moscow’s Yaroslavskoye Highway to recruit migrant workers, who were then brought to the Zubr base in the nearby region of Shchelkovo. There, they were forced to dig ditches, set up fences, and clean toilets without pay, even though Official invoices included tallies of the cost of labor.

Krepkova said that the workers, who she labeled as “slaves,” even wound up working in the dacha of Deputy Interior Minister Colonel General Mikhail Sukhodolsky. In addition to not being paid the workers were beaten and poorly treated in general. After Internal Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev undertook a survey of the base, the workers were assigned more specific tasks, she said.

The former officer explained that funding for labor was previously determined by the Zubr officers themselves, and that today the funds are specifically allocated by the Internal Ministry. As such, she was unaware if Zubr was continuing such practices today.

The New Times article adds that the Zubr OMON subdivision is under the direct jurisdiction of Internal Minister Nurgaliyev, and is commonly known as “the minister’s personal security.”

A spokesperson from the Internal Ministry said on Monday that they plan to sue the magazine for libel.

Monday’s article is the second in less than a month by the New Times to address problems with the OMON, which are notorious for their brutal suppression of activist rallies and other protests. On February 1, the magazine published an open letter from a number of former Moscow OMON to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, describing poor working conditions, mistreatment by their superiors, orders to break up opposition rallies, and rampant corruption.

The next day, members of the Moscow city OMON announced their decision to sue the New Times for libel. City Police Chief Vladimir Kolokoltsev later stated that an internal investigation found the charges to be false. Additionally, the agency sent invitations to a number of journalists and rights activists to join the OMON for Russia’s traditional Maslenitsa festival celebrations. The OMON said that the event was a chance to show that the agency had nothing to hide, but the online newspaper Gazeta.ru described the proceedings as obviously staged.

The New Times noted that in response to the February 1 article, it has received a record number of letters from police officers with similar experiences. Its editors said on Monday that while they have yet to receive notification of any lawsuits regarding the articles, they are prepared to defend them in court.

Monday’s article can be read in its entirety in Russian by clicking here.

An estimated two thousand people attended a protest in the Siberian city of Irkutsk on Saturday, and another 1200 people attended an unrelated protest in the city of Samara on the same day. Among other demands, both groups had harsh criticism for the prime minister and called for him to immediately step down.

In Irkutsk, residents, workers, and environmental activists gathered to protest the reopening of the controversial Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill. After decades of protests, operations at the mill were finally suspended in October 2008 due to environmental concerns regarding the mill’s discharge of toxic waste into Lake Baikal, the world’s largest freshwater lake and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. However, a decree signed by Prime Minister Putin in mid-January allowed the mill to reopen, sparking renewed outrage from citizens and environmental activists internationally.

A coalition of ecological and civic organizations organized Saturday’s protest, and politicians from the local legislative assembly and Moscow showed up to support the effort. Leader Sergei Mitrokhin of the liberal Yabloko Party and co-leader Vladimir Milov of the Solidarity opposition movement were among those present. Activists from the banned National Bolshevik Party also attended the protest, holding a banner reading “People! Baikal! Victory!” – the acronym of which matches with the acronym of their party name in Russian.

Protesters singled out oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who has control over the mill, and Prime Minister Putin, who they accuse of covering up Deripaska’s unethical business practices, as the main targets of their enmity.

Irkutsk city officials had warned prior to the rally that security would be tight. Blaming “the current economic situation of Russia” for an increase in opposition protests, Deputy Internal Minister Mikhail Sukhodolsky promised that “no excuses will be accepted” for failures of the police to curb demonstrations.

Given that, the city dispatched a number of armored military vehicles to flank the demonstration. Photographs published online of the vehicles, one of which resembles a small tank, were decried on Tuesday by the Russian Internal Ministry as “provocational and not corresponding to reality.” In a statement to Kasparov.ru, Solidarity activist Ilya Yashin maintained that “my colleague Vladimir Milov took these photographs, and many people saw these machines.”

The increase in police forces was especially notable because of the comparatively small security presence at a January 30 rally in Kaliningrad, where 12 thousand people gathered to protest rising tariffs and to demand the resignations of the prime minister and local Governor Georgy Boos.

Demonstrators at a counter-protest in Irkutsk organized by the pro-Kremlin United Russia party praised the reopening of the mill, with between a thousand and 1500 participants holding banners with the phrases “Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill – our life” and “Thanks to the government for the opportunity to work in Baikalsk.” One placard directed at opponents of the mill read “Suitcase – Station – UNESCO.”

In contrast to their choices during the Kaliningrad rally, the regional branches of the token opposition groups Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) and A Just Russia sided with the United Russia counter-demonstration. State Duma Deputy and LDPR member Andrei Lugovoy, who is wanted by a British court for suspicion in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, travelled from Moscow to address the crowd.

The second protest, in Samara, was initially intended to be held “in defense of constitutional rights and freedoms.” In addition, however, protesters turned out to voice their disapproval of numerous governmental practices, including rising housing and utilities tariffs, crumbling infrastructure, and the failed modernization of the local AvtoVAZ automobile manufacturer. Among their concrete demands were the return of direct gubernatorial elections and the resignations of Prime Minister Putin and Samara Governor Vladimir Artyakov, who is also the former head of AvtoVAZ.

A number of civic and labor organizations took part in the rally in Samara, including the All-Russian Strike Committee, which was invited by AvtoVAZ factory workers. According to Committee coordinator Nikolai Nikolaev, several groups of auto workers from the cities of Tolyatti and Syzran were unable to attend the demonstration because police had blocked off the road.

Given the failed modernization of the auto manufacturer, Nikolayev said after the rally, “people discussed the issue of how to live from now on. The AvtoVAZ workers said that the authorities are not dealing with their problems.”

In their own way of dealing with their problems, regional police in Samara are planning to initiate criminal charges against the rally’s organizers. During the demonstration, voters rights activist Aleksandr Lashmankin called for participants to stage a repeat demonstration on March 5 – a statement that “was not covered in the application to hold the rally,” a police representative explained to the Interfax news agency.