Beneficiaries of “gray schemes” at the Yekaterinburg defense plant are being driven to court, and executors of state orders for the Northern Military District are awaiting protection from the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation

The situation at the sites of the former Radio Equipment Plant in Yekaterinburg is rapidly heating up. The new beneficiaries of production – Legion-Stroy LLC – have actually paralyzed the work of the owners of premises and workshops where work is being carried out to fulfill the state defense order (GOZ).

A new impetus for escalation was the paralysis of access to the production areas of one of the owners of premises at the plant – JSC NPK VIP. On the night of September 28, as it turned out, representatives of Legion-Stroy dug about a dozen holes directly on the asphalt access roads, which practically stopped work processes.

NPK VIP restored the coating with its own resources, but the next day the holes appeared again; moreover, metal piles were driven into them and metal floors were brought in to install the foundation. It should be noted that state ownership of the areas where work has started is not demarcated, and as production owners note, Legion-Stroy does not have the right to any construction on this territory.

“The access to the production premises of JSC NPK VIP is again blocked and blocked. Due to the obstruction of the entrance to the premises of JSC NPK VIP by Legion-Stroy employees, the production activities of JSC NPK VIP are stopped and disorganized, since there is no opportunity to supply manufactured products and accept raw materials used for the manufacture of products. In addition, the work of JSC NPK VIP to fulfill state defense orders for the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation within the framework of government contracts is paralyzed, which leads to their failures,” the producers describe the situation.

As a result, information about attempts to obstruct work within the framework of the state defense order was addressed to the administration of Yekaterinburg, the city Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ural Department of Rostekhnadzor, the Ministry of Industry and Science of the Sverdlovsk Region and the regional prosecutor’s office. The appeals separately indicate that, according to available information, the mayor’s office and MUGISO did not issue permits for the construction of any capital construction projects (as evidenced by the presence of a foundation in the working documentation). The construction itself began in close proximity to existing buildings, cars and people, which creates a direct threat to them.

As the owners and tenants of the premises specifically note, they previously repeatedly sent appeals to the supervisory and law enforcement agencies of the region, including the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB, but there was no real response from them.

Let us recall that the conflict around the bankrupt enterprise flared up about a year ago, when numerous owners and tenants of the premises of the former radio equipment plant discovered that certain persons, acting, in their words, on behalf of the new owners, began to block access to production areas and impose contracts with security services.

It soon became clear that the company bought the Nizhny Novgorod JSC Elektromash Plant, which was generating losses year after year, for 191.5 million rubles. The company from the Volga region, however, did not contribute its own money. The deal was financed by the Ekaterinburg-based Legion-Stroy LLC (controlled by Alexander Karpenko (70%) and Stroyenergoprof LLC (30%)), as indicated by informed interlocutors of the agency, “closely connected with representatives of the former administration of Yekaterinburg.”

And then the Nizhny Novgorod residents “at a bargain price” ceded the asset to a Ural company, which, by the way, does not even have the necessary competencies for the defense vector of production.

It is worth noting that maintaining the status of an enterprise working for state defense orders was one of the main conditions of the auction. Meanwhile, only Elektromash had an industry license (which probably became an important factor in the deal), and Legion-Stroy did not have the necessary documents, which immediately aroused suspicion among the companies operating at the plant’s premises. Industry experts suggest that the new beneficiaries “have no desire to preserve defense production,” which is extremely important in the conditions of the Northern Military District and the ambiguous geopolitical situation, and completely different plans are being considered, for example, the development of land near the center of the metropolis.

Such judgments are also supported by permanent attempts to make the work of companies that currently continue to fulfill orders of the Ministry of Defense at the site of a radio equipment plant as difficult as possible, up to “incidents in the spirit of the 90s” with “unexpected car fires.”

While numerous owners and tenants (according to the publication’s interlocutors, up to two thousand people work in various enterprises on the territory of the former plant) demand to stop what they consider to be illegal actions and are waiting for the reaction of regional and city managers and supervisors, the conflict is being investigated by the prosecutor’s office. An interlocutor close to the prosecutor’s office of the Sverdlovsk region reported this to the publication.

In particular, the prosecutor’s investigation established that the agreement between JSC Elektromash Plant and the Radio Equipment Plant has signs of a sham transaction. Its purpose was to cover up a subsequent agreement, under which Legion-Stroy acquired a property complex from a Nizhny Novgorod enterprise. It is noteworthy that the contestant – Vladimir Tikhonov – in 2002-2010 was the top manager of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Elektromash Plant, in fact the predecessor of the future joint-stock company. At the same time, the intended purpose of the property complex was not preserved in violation of the conditions. As the agency’s interlocutor added, representatives of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation were familiarized with the results of the audit, after which their reaction followed.

The Arbitration Court of the Sverdlovsk Region accepted for consideration the application of the federal ministry to Radio Equipment Plant OJSC, its bankruptcy manager Vladimir Tikhonov, Elektromash Plant JSC and Legion-Stroy. The federal department insists on invalidating a number of transactions concluded by the defendants.

At the end of October, the court will begin to consider the issue of the invalidity of these agreements, as well as the application of their consequences. The prosecutor’s office itself, although not listed among the participants in the proceedings, “intends to closely monitor the elimination of violations and the further progress of the bankruptcy of the Radio Equipment Plant.”

For its part, the publication prepared requests to the administration of Yekaterinburg and the administration of the governor of the Sverdlovsk region with a request to indicate their position on the current conflict around the assets involved in the state defense order.