Vorobyov Andrey

Governor of the Moscow Region (2013 - to date), Member of the Presidium of the General Council of the United Russia Party.

VOROBYOV, Andrey Yuryevich (b. 1970 in Krasnoyarsk) is a Russian politician, a former member of the State Duma where he headed the United Russia faction. As a conscript in 1990, he took part in the suppression of protests Baku turned into a massacre. In 1995, he graduated from North Ossetian State University, from the All-Russian Academy of Foreign Trade in Moscow in 1998, and from HSE Institute of Communication Management in 2006. In 1997, Andrey Vorobyov and his brother Maxim started the fishing business, and two years later they built a fish processing plant in Noginsk, Moscow Region. He left the business in 2000.

In 2000, he started a career as a government official. He becomes an assistant to Sergei Shoigu, a deputy prime minister and Minister of Emergency Situations. Note that Vorobyov had known Shoigu since 1989. The same year, Vorobyov headed the so-called Interregional Public Fund for Supporting the United Russia Party. It was a well-functioning mechanism of “voluntary-forced” contributions for the ruling party, mainly from regional businessmen. At the same time, this fund was engaged in rather shady “humanitarian operations” in the territories de facto controlled by Russia, seized from other countries, as in Transnistria, Samachablo (South Ossetia) and Abkhazia. The authorities praised the efforts of ex-businessman Vorobyov to raise funds for their party and in 2002, Vorobyov became the representative of Adygea in the Federation Council.

In 2003, he was elected to the State Duma. In the Duma of the sixth convocation (2011-2016), he became the leader of the faction of the ruling party. There Vorobyov, however, worked for only one year, from 2011 to 2012, after which Putin appointed him interim governor of the Moscow Region. Vorobyov headed the Central Executive Committee of United Russia for 7 years (from 2005 to 2012). He is still a member of the Bureau of the Supreme Council and the Presidium of the General Council of the United Russia Party. Andrey Vorobyev is currently heading the Moscow Region. In this post, he got involved in several scandals.

Vorobyov’s main “victory” at the governor’s post was the almost complete elimination of local self-governance in the Moscow Region. In 2014, Vorobyov introduced a draft law on the abolition of direct elections of mayors of cities and municipalities to the Moscow Regional Duma. The unconditionally loyal Moscow Regional Duma approved the project in one day and without any discussion with local authorities. Moreover, in 2016, Vorobyov went further and canceled direct elections of the heads of the districts of the region.

In 2016, Vorobyov undertook the most ambitious “reform of local self-governance” in the history of post-Soviet Russia, when villages and cities, districts and previously already enlarged cities (urban districts) were replaced by huge urban districts with a poorer representation of the locals. In practice, this meant the abolition of the local governance system in the region. The problem arising from the transformation of districts into urban districts is that it gives additional trump cards to continue the mass development of the Moscow Region with 30-40-story residential buildings to the “construction mafia” which is closely braided with the regional authorities. When a rare village council would permit the construction of such facilities on its territory, then the authorities of an urban district usually don’t stop before such generous acts. In addition to causing damage to the ecology and natural environment of the local population, such a development will lead to the transportation collapse and an increase in unemployment, while about half of its able-bodied population is completely deprived of any leisure, having to spend long hours on the way to work in the center of Moscow.

Vorobyov played a role in the garbage crisis which has become especially acute in the suburbs of Moscow. Moscow region has turned into a giant dump in recent years, where Moscow garbage is taken out (and the actual population of Moscow is about 20 million people), even though the region has enough local garbage. It is noteworthy that both in the country as a whole and in the region, the best international practices on waste disposal that are not detrimental to the health of the surrounding population are ignored. Existing landfills are growing from year to year. The construction of a large number of incinerators in the region instead of the current landfill sites, according to independent experts, will not improve the environmental situation, but will only lead to a continued increase in fees for waste disposal and can cause a serious surge in oncology and other serious diseases among the local population.

The regional authorities, led by Vorobyov, either ignore the protests of the residents or pretend to eliminate “certain shortcomings in the field,” or resort to direct repressions against the protesters. The most striking example of such repression is the persecution of the head of the Serpukhov district of the region, Alexander Shestun, who also opposed the liquidation of his district and, since 2018, has been imprisoned on trumped-up charges.

- Many years of leadership of the ruling party of the Putin regime, United Russia.

- The use of the “administrative resource” both in gubernatorial elections and in elections of local authorities of the Moscow region in favor of United Russia and its proteges.

- Corruption (enlargement of settlements in the interests of high officials and the “construction mafia,” lobbying for the construction of incinerators in the interests of corrupt Putin’s oligarchs, etc.).

- The persecution of political opponents (Alexander Shestun, participants in protest rallies, etc.).

- The unconstitutional elimination of the local governance in the Moscow region.

- Ecological crimes (failure to take effective measures for most of the landfills, approvement for the construction of incinerators in violation of environmental safety standards, etc).