Sergei Bakeshin has commented on the presidential decree introducing basic preparedness levels in a number of regions

Sergei Bakeshin - Counsel

St Petersburg has been included in the list of Russian regions where, the level of basic preparedness has become effective since 20 October 2022 by a decree of Russian President Vladimir Putin. As part of the security measures, an operational headquarter under Alexander Beglov, the Governor of St Petersburg, is to ensure widespread strengthening of security and introduction of a “special operating mode” for life support facilities, including transport, communications and communications, and energy facilities. At the same time, according to the decree, decisions of the operational headquarterswill be binding not only for citizens and organizations, but also for regional departments of federal agencies.

Sergei Bakeshin, Senior Associate at Maxima Legal, explained to Delovoy Peterburg newspaper that, “Russian laws, as far as I know, do not provide for the level of basic preparedness. There is a regime of high readiness, but it is mentioned in the law on protection from emergencies and refers to such cases as, for example, a pandemic. In addition, the preamble to this decree contains no reference to the law under which these regimes are established. This also indirectly suggests the absence of such a law. However, all the measures mentioned there are in law. They are contained in the law “On Martial Law”. In particular, what is being introduced in all regions are the first measures from Article 7(2) of this law. Moreover, they are rewritten literally from there. In the case of martial law, not all the measures envisaged by this law are necessarily involved – there may be different regimes for different territories”.

In addition, Sergei Bakeshin pointed out that it was not clear how the powers of the head of the region to govern the activities of federal authorities in his region would be implemented in practice, because under the current law they should not depend on him.

To read the full article (in Russian) please visit Delovoy Peterburg website >>>