Residents of Vremenny treat received compensations as insufficient

Over 600 residents of the dwelling settlement of Vremenny have received compensations for their property lost during the special operation conducted in the fall of 2014. Payments of 50-100,000 roubles fail to cover the damage; while victims couldn't achieve compensations for their lost housing, local residents and their lawyers have reported.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that since September 2014, residents of Vremenny in Dagestan have been seeking compensation from the authorities for their destroyed housing. On March 12, 2019, the Untsukul District Court recognized the officials' inaction. On November 9, Russian Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, signed an order to pay 58.3 million roubles to the residents of Vremenny to reimburse their movable property lost during the above special operation.

They had sought these compensations for five years; more than 600 residents have already received their compensations, which, however, only partially cover their lost movable property, as explained by Marina Agaltsova, a lawyer at the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial".

She has recalled that for two years, the HRC "Memorial" had been trying to initiate a criminal case against the law enforcers, who conducted the special operation. "However, their actions were recognized as legitimate; and, therefore, we had to seek compensations for the damage caused by legitimate actions. According to the law, victims of such actions have the right to partial compensations: 100,000 roubles for complete loss of movable property, and 50,000 – for partial loss thereof," Ms Agaltsova has added.

The amount of payments fails to cover all the damage caused during the special operation, said Aminat Supyanova, a member of residents' initiative group. "If not for the rise in prices, the compensations would be enough to furnish the homes. But when they launched the operation, the US dollar was worth 36-38 roubles; since then it went up to 60 roubles. Everything has become much more expensive: an ordinary TV-set costs some 35-40,000 roubles. Therefore, this money fails to cover all the damage," she has noted.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on December 30, 2019 at 10:24 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.