Nenets Autonomous Okrug is not going to be unified with Arkhangelsk Oblast. RBC reported that the acting head of NAO Yury Bezdudny had announced this in the evening of July 2. In his opinion, this very topic has influenced the negative result of voting on amendments to the Constitution in the region.
Bezdudny said that the matter with the regions’ unification had been allegedly brought to a close at the end of May and there would be no plebiscite on this issue. According to him, residents did not take this fact into account, because "it was very profitable for some forces to fuel this topic in order to earn political capital" before elections for the State Duma. He did not explain whom he meant.
Yury Bezdudny added that NAO and Arkhangelsk Oblast were going to continue working together on federal projects related to the development of the Arctic and on the project of the Indigo Deep-Water Port.
As a result of voting on amendments to the Constitution, Nenets Autonomous Okrug (NAO) is the only region in Russia where the majority of residents voted down (54.57%). Yury Bezdudny said on his page on vk.com that these votes were not against the amendments, but a reaction to the topic of the unification of NAO and Arkhangelsk Oblast.
Acting heads of Arkhangelsk Oblast and Nenets Autonomous Okrug Alexander Tsybulsky and Yury Bezdudny signed a memorandum of intent to unify the regions on May 13.
NAO is the most lowly populated region of the Russian Federation. According to the Federal State Statistics Service, as of January 1, 2019, 43.8 thousand people live in the region.
