Shpilyonok Tikhon Igorevich

At the end of February 2019, Daria Panicheva, the head of the scientific department of the Kronotsky Reserve, the author of several dozen scientific publications, a regular participant in scientific and practical conferences, was detained in Kamchatka. She was accused of embezzling budget funds. According to the investigation, while implementing a pilot project for Russia to eliminate accumulated environmental damage, employees of the Kronotsky Nature Reserve embezzled 450 million rubles. The investigation was based on the hypothesis that hundreds of tons of metal barrels, empty and with residual petroleum products, old equipment, and building debris from the protected area were not removed but buried on the shore. According to the reserve staff, the case itself arose from the testimony of the contractor for these works, who took advantage of the fact that the former reserve director, Tikhon Shpilenok, had died of a serious illness in 2016 and could no longer refute his testimony. In Omsk on August 8, 2020, a criminal case was opened against local activist Alexander Pasichnyk for violence against a government official. An employee of the reserve was collecting scientific justifications that could interfere with the construction. On March 21, 2019, Oksana Terekhova, Deputy Director for Economics and Finance of the Kronotsky Nature Reserve, was detained on charges of embezzlement. According to the investigation, Terekhova helped in the theft of budget funds during the "general cleaning" of the Pacific coast of the Kronotsky Nature Reserve. In 2015-2016, LLC "Ecology, which won the tender, was supposed to clean the reservoirs and bays of the reserve from scrap metal and lubricants. The deputy director was a member of the commission that accepted and signed acts on the work performed. Later, Roman Korchigin, former deputy director for educational tourism, Nikolai Pozdnyakov, former employee of the reserve, and Ruslan Oshurov, an entrepreneur, were charged in the case. The accused in the case also became the former director of the reserve, Tikhon Shpilenok, who died in December 2016 from cancer." On April 4, 2024, the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky City Court of Kamchatka Krai found the defendants guilty and sentenced Roman Korchigin to 3 years probation, Oksana Terekhova to 5 years probation, Daria Panicheva to 3.5 years probation, and Nikolai Pozdnyakov to 2.5 years probation. Entrepreneur Ruslan Oshurov received a real sentence of 4.5 years. The case against former reserve director Tikhon Shpilenok was terminated by the court on non-rehabilitating grounds due to the death of the defendant. On July 24, 2024, the Kamchatka Regional Court upheld the verdict.