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“We can’t even open our windows at night,” [76-year-old Yanosh] 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.”