On April 14, 2016, former employees of a fishmeal plant in Shikotan, an island east of Japan in the disputed Northern territories, submitted a video during “Direct Line with Vladimir Putin,” an annual television program where reports and members of the public could ask the president questions. In the video,the workers said that Ostrovnoy owed them two-six months of unpaid wages.1 “Sometimes you can’t even buy a bar of soap,” said one woman who worked at the Ostrovnoy plant as a cook.2 The workers told the president that recruiters initially promised them high wages, but when they reached the plant, their employers delayed their paychecks, preventing them from buying tickets to leave the island, which was 400 miles away from the nearest land mass.3 The response was swift once it hit national news: Putin ordered an investigation which revealed that the company owed at least 200 of its workers a total of more than $77,000, and led to the arrests of the plant’s former director for embezzlement.4 On May 13, 2016, Ostrovnoy declared bankruptcy, and roughly 70 workers fearing dismissal signed a letter to President Putin asking him to stop the bankruptcy proceedings.5 The case highlighted the vulnerability of fishery workers in far-flung locales at the mercy of single-company towns, often too afraid to speak out without top-level intervention.
Dalnevostochny Rybak Management Company, the parent company of Ostrovnoy, was established in 2017 as a result of the merger of several companies in the fishing industry market. Their website says that they “carry a wide range of seafood varieties and all of our catches are from sustainable stocks.” Fishing is carried out in the Bering, Okhotsk, Sea of Japan, in the North and South Kuriles, in the exclusive economic zone of Japan and in the open waters of the North Pacific Ocean. The fishing is carried out with trawl fishing gear, longlines, bottom nets, saury side traps, crab traps and diving.6
On July 4, 2023, residents of Malokurilskoye, located on Shikotan Island, expressed concerns about coastal water pollution caused by the new fish processing plant. Along with photos vividly illustrating their claims, a text appeal to the Ministry of Ecology of the Sakhalin Oblast appeared on the Telegram channel “Shikotan Telegraph.”7 People complained not only about suspected violations of environmental legislation but also about restrictions imposed by the plant on public access to the coast: “Part of the waste is buried nearby on a hill where unusable quarry stones are dumped. The smell is foul. Most of the bay’s coastline is blocked by the plant. There is nowhere else for the population to relax with children, and where space remains, the shore is covered with greasy, sticky, foul-smelling waste from the plant.” Similar complaints had repeatedly been filed against Ostrovnoy Fish Processing Plant, located in Malokurilskoye, according to the Ministry of Ecology and Sustainable Development of Sakhalin region, which analyzed and cited the complaints.8
Ostrovnoy Fish Processing Plant also owns a construction company which has been involved in a number of local development projects. “It should be noted that the construction company of the fish processing plant had previously built a three-story apartment building and a cottage village for employees, and a hotel for guests and tourists,” according to a July 2024 article in ASTV, a Russian TV channel.9 A bakery with a pizzeria, a pharmacy, and a church were also built.” Recent news reports mentioned that the State Labor Inspection in the Sakhalin Oblast received a report of a fatal accident that occurred on April 21, 2025. During fishing operations, one of the workers fell overboard according to astv.ru. A “Man Overboard” alarm was raised on the vessel, and the victim was pulled out of the water unconscious after 10 minutes. Despite attempts at resuscitation, the man could not be saved, and his death was confirmed an hour later.10
BMRT Ahtiar (Factory ship): In 2020, the Kokand changed its name to Ahtiar.11 “I was promised a good salary and conditions on the ship, but everything turned out to be worse than it really was: the shower didn't work, the toilet didn't work, the ship was rusty,” wrote a former bosun on the ship in a February 26, 2021 review.12 On April 8, 2021, the Ahtiar caught fire while fishing in the Sea of Okhotsk, when corrugated cardboard in the hold ignited from friction.13 Crew members threw the burning cardboard packages overboard and a nearby rescue vessel extinguished the fire before anyone was hurt.14
On September 10, 2024, the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky City Court fined Ostrovnoy over $105,000 for catching at least 300 tons of pollock, turning it into fishmeal on the vessel, and falsifying logbooks to indicate that they caught goby and squid instead.15 More than 12 tons of the fishmeal was carried to the Ostrovnoy factory on the Korona reefer. Border guards took samples of the fishmeal which revealed that it was mostly derived from pollock.16
Ostrovnoy Fish Processing Plant LLC did not respond to a request for comment.17