According to Interfax, on April 20, acting Governor of Arkhangelsk Oblast Alexander Tsybulsky said that the investor had started reclaiming the land plot at Shies. He stated that the company started work on April 7. Activists who oppose the project deny that they had been conducted for the past two weeks.
During the briefing, Tsybulsky said that the investor had made a commitment to finish the reclamation within two years. "We will monitor this," the acting governor was quoted by Interfax. During an interview with the editor-in-chief of the Echo of the North News Agency of Arkhangelsk on April 15, Alexander Tsybulsky said that he did not support the landfill construction at Shies.
According to activists of the Shies Commune Movement Anna Shekalova, work on the reclamation was not conducted on April 20. Other activists who are holding eco-watch in a tent camp told her about this.
On April 11, activists reported in community "We are against the landfill in Lensky district" on vk.com that on April 8, workers dismantled 33 metal sheets off the southern side of a fencing around the land plot where the forest had been cut down due to the landfill construction. According to their information, 219 sheets remained as part of the fence. However, no work was carried out for the next three days.
— No reclamation is being carried out at Shies. These sheets have been removed and are still lying around, — Anna Shekalova told the correspondent of 7x7. — No work is being conducted. There are approximately 100 private security guards and six police officers, but they are only issuing us reports on self-isolation. We are on duty every day and see that the job stands.
Alexander Tsybulsky took up the post of acting Governor of Arkhangelsk Oblast on April 2. The project of the landfill at station Shies was approved by former governor Igor Orlov in 2018. Orlov resigned on April 2.
The construction of the landfill for Moscow waste import began at station Shies on the border of Arkhangelsk Oblast and the Komi Republic in the summer of 2018 without permits. Residents of the region and the neighboring Komi Republic regularly held protest actions, and activists organized duties on the eco-watch (a tent camp near the construction site of the landfill). In December 2019, it became known that Moscow had not included Shies in its territorial waste management scheme for the next 10 years.
