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Medvedev Signals Hope for Khimki Forest

President Dmitry Medvedev promised on Tuesday to consider the fate of a historic oak forest north of Moscow that is slated to be replaced with an $8 billion highway between Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Medvedev was responding to a question posed at a meeting with French businesspeople in Paris after one of them referred to the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development’s recent decision to pull out of the project because of public anger over plans to raze the forest.

“I’ll try to see if there are any possibilities to facilitate the project in light of the EBRD’s decision,” Medvedev said, Interfax reported. Apart from the EBRD, investors in the proposed highway include Vneshekonombank and the European Investment Bank.

Residents of Khimki, a city on Moscow’s northern outskirts, have called for the protection of the forest at rallies and in court. Medvedev has also expressed concern about the oaks, which were planted in the forest more than 100 years ago.

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from activists to stop the construction of the highway. Yevgenia Chirikova, one of the activists, told reporters Monday that the case would be submitted to the European Court of Human Rights.

In the last two years, the forest has become a symbol of grassroots activism in Russia. In November 2008, Mikhail Beketov, one of the forest’s staunchest defenders and the editor of local newspaper Khimkinskaya Pravda, was badly beaten after he criticized the local administration’s support for the plan to raze the forest. His leg was amputated after the attack, which still remains unsolved.

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