The Minister of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation Vladimir Kolokoltsev fired two employees of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Moscow for refusing asylum to a writer from Latvia. This was announced on Thursday, February 16, by the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, Irina Volk.
Kolokoltsev dismissed Police Colonel Igor Dudnik, Deputy Head of the Migration Department of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for Moscow, and Police Colonel Tatyana Dmitrievts, Head of the Department for Refugees, Temporary Asylum and IDPs of the Department for Migration of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for Moscow. The reason for the dismissals was a formal approach to the consideration of citizens’ applications.
The Russian-speaking Latvian writer Sergei Vasiliev was forced to leave the territory of Latvia, as a number of states began criminal prosecution of him due to his active volunteer work in support of the residents of Donbass. In this regard, he arrived in Russia and applied to the Department of Internal Affairs of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for Moscow with a request to grant him temporary asylum.
“The audit showed that the statement of Sergei Vasiliev was considered superficially by authorized officials, without taking into account all the circumstances, including the presence of a threat to his life and health in the territory of the state of permanent residence,” Irina Volk clarifies.
As a result, the writer was unreasonably denied temporary asylum. At this point, it has been cancelled.
“In the near future, the issue of granting temporary asylum to the applicant on the territory of the Russian Federation will be resolved positively,” the representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs specified.
Earlier, on January 16, it was reported that the Ministry of Internal Affairs was ready to consider the issue of resolving the legal status of French journalist Adrian Boke, who had applied for asylum in Russia, if he submitted an appropriate application, taking into account information about the persecution of the journalist for his active pro-Russian position. Adrian Boke, who visited the Donbass as a volunteer and military expert on NATO weapons, asked the Russian authorities to grant him political asylum in mid-December 2022.
Since February 24, 2022, Russia has been conducting a special operation to protect Donbass. The decision to start it was made against the background of the aggravation of the situation in the region as a result of shelling by the Ukrainian military.
