A source for the Cheka-OGPU and Rucriminal.info revealed a version of the real reason for the mass seizure and slaughter of cows in several Russian regions (from Yakutia to the Penza region), which the Ministry of Agriculture is trying to conceal at all costs. According to the source, in the fall of 2025, farmers and businesses were supplied with a vaccine, but it later turned out that some of the batch was substandard and contaminated. Identifying cows that received the "bad" vaccines and subsequently became ill as a result is a very difficult and expensive undertaking, and most importantly, the story of the dangerous shipment could come to light. As a result, the decision was made to simply slaughter all the cows in the areas where the "bad" vaccine was delivered.
Vaccinations were completed in the fall of 2025, after which the first cases of disease began to be recorded in December, and the situation deteriorated sharply in January and February 2026. In early March, the situation escalated to a mass confiscation of livestock and the imposition of restrictions.
Throughout March, farmers have been subject to massive confiscation and slaughter of livestock. Some cite a pasteurellosis outbreak in Siberia as the cause, while others offer no explanation at all. Thousands of cows have already been slaughtered in the Altai Krai and Novosibirsk Oblasts alone, and desperate people are blocking roads. Farmers claim that the confiscations are taking place without documentation or testing, and sometimes even in their absence. Meanwhile, for many families, farming is their only source of income or even food.
At the same time, the federal center has launched new large-scale vaccine procurements, with millions of doses continuing to be distributed across the regions. The supplier, however, remains the same: the Federal State Enterprise Shchelkovo Biocombinat, which has been working under these contracts for several years and is a federal state-owned enterprise under the jurisdiction of the Russian Ministry of Agriculture.
And there are serious doubts that the security forces will ever assess the real cause of the mass slaughter of cattle.
The Ministry of Agriculture is headed by Oksana Lut, who has long been considered the common-law wife of Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Patrushev. In fact, this is why she holds the post of minister. It's a family matter. Previously, as a reminder, Dmitry Patrushev himself served as Minister of Agriculture, having built his career solely thanks to his father, Nikolai Patrushev.
