Because of the April action in support of Alexei Navalny, the Moscow Metro fired about 40 employees. Vasily Shelyakov, deputy chairman of the independent trade union of the Moscow Metro State Unitary Enterprise, told Open Media about this. 

There are many of them, but we do not know about all of them, only about 40 people have contacted me. Calculations come even to people who are on sick leave. 

According to Shelyakov, employees are offered a choice of two ways of dismissal – by agreement of the parties or under an article for absenteeism. Informally, in conversations with the leadership, they are told that this is due to the registration on the site “Freedom Navalny” or with the attendance of the rally on April 21. 

Moscow City Duma deputy Mikhail Timonov wrote in his telegram channel about the information he received that the metro management ordered the dismissal of up to several hundred employees by May 14 – those who were in the database on the site for Navalny, or those who had relatives there. Timonov noted that he would start checking this information. 

The metro itself has not yet commented on the layoffs.

The site free.navalny.com was created in February to gather those wishing to come out in support of the politician. In mid-April, users registered on it began to receive letters with threats that employers would be told about their political views. After that, law enforcement agencies came to many of them with checks.

Navalny’s associate Leonid Volkov said that the database was stolen with the help of a former FBK employee recruited by the Russian FSB. Meduza later found out that traces of the site hacking lead to people associated with the presidential administration and its managerial staff.

According to  Dozhd’s estimates , there are more than 150 people in the database who have indicated the Moscow Metro as their place of work. 

(C)MEDUZA 2021