Traffic cops in the Rostov region took bribes from drivers for driving on bypass roads on the day of the Wagner PMC rebellion in the region – on the night of June 25. RostovGazeta writes about this.
According to the publication, for the first time information about this appeared in the Rostov_com Telegram channel. Residents of Omsk, who transported humanitarian aid along the highway, complained about extortion from the traffic police in the Rostov region.
The drivers claim that they were transporting humanitarian aid to military personnel in three cars to the “special operation” zone, as the Russian authorities demand to call the war in Ukraine. However, at the traffic police post in Morozovsk, they did not want to let them through to Kamensk-Shakhtinsky.
“Law enforcement officers asked for two thousand rubles for the passage of three UAZ cars. They explained this by saying that the route was allegedly blocked and if you need to arrive quickly, you will have to pay money, ”one of the participants in the trip said in a video message.
Otherwise, traffic cops offered drivers to take a detour of 1.5 thousand kilometers. The author of the publication claims that he had to pay the required amount.
Official information about checks in this regard has not been received, the newspaper notes. The day before, the former head of the traffic police department in Novocherkassk, Rostov Region, Yevgeny Ganzenko, was sentenced to 9 years in prison for corruption, RostovGazeta reported, citing the press service of the courts of the Rostov Region. He was found guilty of bribery "for the patronage of a junior colleague." The court found that Ganzenko demanded that the subordinate give him 150 thousand rubles a month as a guarantee that in the future he would “patronize him in the service.” Within four months from November 2019 to February 2020, Ganzenko received 600 thousand rubles from a subordinate. The ex-chief was stripped of the rank of police major, he will not be able to hold a position in the civil service for five years.
On the night of June 24, the head of the Wagner PMC, Yevgeny Prigozhin, began the “March of Justice” against Moscow. Before that, he claimed that the places of deployment of his fighters were fired upon by the forces of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. The MoD denies this information. On June 24, PMC fighters entered Rostov-on-Don, they were moving towards the capital through the Voronezh and Lipetsk regions. During the advance, the mercenaries damaged roads, destroyed at least two combat helicopters and one plane, the losses of the Russian army ranged from 4 to 20 people. On the evening of June 24, it was reported about the downed Ka-52 Alligator helicopter near the Voronezh village of Komintern and two dead pilots.
Less than a day later, Prigozhin deployed his columns, the press service of Alexander Lukashenko stated that this was done by the "agreement" of the Belarusian leader with the head of the PMC. Presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov promised that the founder of PMC Wagner would "leave for Belarus." On the morning of June 27, Prigozhin's plane landed in Belarus, whether he was on board is unknown. The FSB said that the criminal case on the armed rebellion was closed. The Ministry of Defense announced preparations for the transfer of heavy military equipment from PMC Wagner to units of the RF Armed Forces. Lukashenka said that the Wagnerites on the territory of Belarus “will tell you what is important now,” since they have experience at the forefront.