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‘I’m tired of living in hell’. Appealing to Putin for relief from pollution and unsafe housing, Russians find themselves under investigation instead
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Across the country, Russians frustrated by factory emissions, dilapidated housing, and pollution are turning to the president for help. After their complaints to prosecutors, local officials, and police go unanswered, they record public video appeals to Vladimir Putin — hoping someone in power will finally listen. But instead of holding polluters and officials accountable, the Russian authorities go after the people who speak out — summoning them for questioning, fining them, and pressing criminal charges. The independent Okno project looked into just what happens when ordinary Russians go public with their grievances. Meduza shares an abridged English-language version of their findings.
On May 23, Anastasia Sholokhova from Bratsk, a city in Russia’s Irkutsk region, was fined 35,000 rubles (over $400) for “discrediting” the Russian army. The penalty stemmed from a video she appeared in alongside about 20 other residents of a crumbling apartment block, where they guided viewers through what they called a “house of horrors” and appealed directly to President Vladimir Putin and other officials for help.
The video, posted on March 3, is 17 minutes long. But only a few seconds caught the attention of local law enforcement. Speaking off-camera, Sholokhova remarks,“Well, there’s what NATO envies us for. This is why NATO’s coming after us. You’re off somewhere marching around foreign lands, protecting someone — but who’s going to protect us? You’re sitting there in your finery. […] I’ll go film what it is NATO supposedly envies.”
The court ruling left Sholokhova reeling. “I had a nervous breakdown after that verdict,” she said. “Today I feel a bit better. But I’ve come to realize one thing: those in power aren’t protecting the people — they’re rats working against the people. Instead of relocating us from these hazardous buildings, they drag us into court and bury us in fines. I’ve felt firsthand how many people they drive to despair this way.”
Sholokhova’s building was officially declared uninhabitable a decade ago. Since then, the city has repeatedly postponed relocating inhabitants. Residents say that after filing complaints with the prosecutor’s office and the Investigative Committee, officials have begun offering them rooms in dilapidated dormitories or other unsafe buildings.
“After we posted the video and sent a complaint to the Investigative Committee, they opened a case under the negligence statute for violating residents’ rights,” said Ivan Baikalov, another resident. “But there’s still been no procedural decision. The decision on the video, though — as you can see — came quickly enough.”
According to residents, Sholokhova isn’t the only one under pressure — police have summoned others for questioning, though they haven’t yet pressed charges.
an ecological disaster
‘He’s telling the truth’
In the town of Frolovo, in Russia’s Volgograd region, residents also recorded a video appeal to Vladimir Putin and Investigative Committee Chief Alexander Bastrykin. In the footage, shot against a backdrop of thick black smoke billowing from a steel plant, 76-year-old Yanosh Malinovsky describes what it’s like for residents to live amid toxic air pollution — unable to open windows, even at night, with benches in the neighborhood covered in a thick layer of soot.
“This plant processes scrap metal and used tires. At first, of course, we wrote complaints and statements — we wrote to regulators, the prosecutor’s office, Rospotrebnadzor, the Interior Ministry. All we got were form letters,” Malinovsky says in the video. According to him, environmental testing found at least 32 harmful substances in the air, including heavy metal dioxides and blast furnace dust.
“We can’t even open our windows at night,” Malinovsky continues. “That plant spews smoke around the clock. When Vladimir Putin came to Volgograd on April 28–29, the plant suddenly shut down. As soon as he left, they fired it back up at full blast to make up for lost time. We’re 150 kilometers [93 miles] from Volgograd, so imagine — if the emissions were obvious there, what’s happening here?”
Despite his age and leg problems, Malinovsky personally delivered multiple written complaints to city hall. In response, Frolovo Mayor Vasily Dankov filed a report against him, accusing him of organizing an “unauthorized protest.” The protest in question: filming the video address to Putin. On Telegram, the mayor later acknowledged environmental issues at the plant but defended it as “a city-forming enterprise.”
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After the mayor’s complaint, police contacted Malinovsky and “strongly advised” him not to speak publicly about the case or share screenshots of the threats he received from Dankov and the head of the Frolovo City Council.
“I’ve sent the screenshots to police and the Investigative Committee. But while the investigation is ongoing, I’m not allowed to comment,” Malinovsky said. “The messages are awful — insults and profanity.”
After the video was released, Malinovsky began receiving threats via social media. “Some are clearly from the plant, others from people connected to local officials,” he said. “When Dankov took office 20 years ago, the town had 45,000 residents. Now it’s 33,000. Cancer rates are through the roof. But say a word about illegal dumping or emissions, and they’ll come after you. I just asked for an investigation — for someone to figure out how to reduce the harm from emissions. I’m tired of living in hell.”
When asked to comment on Malinovsky’s case, both the Frolovo police and the Investigative Committee for the Volgograd region declined. Residents of Frolovo, when asked about the case, speak cautiously.
“He’s telling the truth. There’s a trash fire burning right now under my window,” said Anastasia, another local resident. “I’m scared it’ll spread to the houses — it’s blazing. We call the city administration, and they just say, ‘That’s not our dump.’”
“If you complain, they’ll come after you, just like they did with Yanosh,” she added. “These days, it’s dangerous to say anything. You’re immediately branded an enemy of the people.”
ignoring the problem
‘They don’t believe justice is possible’
On April 27, Russian blogger Yuri Ozarovsky was walking along the beach in Alushta, a city in occupied Crimea, when he filmed oil-stained rocks and posted the footage online.
Following an oil spill in the Kerch Strait in December 2024, Ozarovsky’s blog became a source of information on the environmental fallout, especially for volunteers coordinating cleanup efforts. He even addressed President Vladimir Putin directly, urging the government to send equipment to affected beaches in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai.
A day after his video from Alushta, police detained Ozarovsky and held him overnight. “They’ve now removed the rocks — which is what I was asking for, that was the whole point of the video,” Ozarovsky said in a follow-up post. “But now they’re asking me to take back what I said. I saw those rocks — they were covered in fuel oil. If it were resin, like they claim, it would have dried up.”
After local police in Alushta charged him with “abusing the freedom of mass information,” Ozarovsky deleted the original video and uploaded a new one, claiming he had seen resin, not oil.
On April 21, in Russia’s Rostov region, local resident Lyudmila Bagirova recorded another video appeal to President Putin. In it, 14 women stand in front of the Semikarakorsk administration building holding signs that read “Remove the fuel oil” and “You’re our only hope.” They ask Putin to investigate what’s happening at a landfill near the town, where trucks have been dumping oil-contaminated sand brought in after the Kerch Strait oil spill.
In another video, filmed at the landfill itself, Bagirova shows a trench and a stream with blackened soil leading into it. An excavator is dumping dirt on top. She asks Putin to initiate an independent environmental investigation.
According to Bagirova, earlier complaints to regional authorities and federal agencies — including reports of suspected chemical waste arriving from Krasnodar Krai and occupied parts of Ukraine — had gone unanswered. The video was widely shared, including by Rostov-on-Don city council member Natalia Oskina.
Two days later, police informed Bagirova that she was facing a misdemeanor charge for holding an unauthorized protest. The case was dropped in early May, after Oskina intervened.
“If not for her support, they would’ve steamrolled us like they do with everyone else,” said Yelena, one of the other women in the video. Oskina herself credited the media coverage more than her own involvement. “I think the public attention helped,” she said. “They dropped the case after the press picked it up.”
Bagirova later told local media that she had received a wave of support during the investigation, though few believed she would escape punishment. “People came by work, asked how I was doing, called, checked in — I felt supported,” she said. “But most people are scared. They don’t believe justice is possible.”
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