Participant of Kuban "tractor march" complaints about pressure from authorities and Cossack leaders

Nikolai Borodin, the Ataman of the Kazan Cossack Army was dismissed from his post "for poor performance" and deprived of his deputy status. In the Kavkaz District authorities banned a Cossack rally in his support by warning the organizers about its illegality. Borodin himself treats these actions as pressure on him after the "tractor march".

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that farmers had repeatedly stated authorities' attempts to suppress the protest movement in the Kuban (Krasnodar Territory).

Sergey Zemtsov, a blogger and lawyer from the Kropotkin District of the Krasnodar Territory, believes that the Ataman had quite well coped with his duties; and there were no reasons for his resignation.

He noted that Borodin had taken part in the "tractor march" with a demand to return 400 hectares of municipal land back into the ownership of the village of Kazanskaya. For his participation in the protests Borodin was arrested for a day in the Rostov Region.

Zemtsov intends to appeal against Borodin's dismissal at court.

Borodin himself has explained that he was deprived of the deputy status allegedly because he had quitted the "Edinaya Rossiya" (United Russia) Party, from which he was elected two years ago.

Sergey Bikeev, the Ataman of the Kavkaz Cossack Division, has explained that Borodin had received orders from his bosses not to take part in the "tractor march", but he ignored them.

In the opinion of Natalia Bayanova, a lawyer of the Kuban legal firm "Consulting Partner", the deprivation of Borodin of his deputy's powers was a violation of the Article "On general principles of local self-government in Russia".

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.