Kirill Seleznev: a top manager of Gazprom may be involved in the withdrawal of billions from his own company

For years, money was “leaking” from Gazprom’s companies under the leadership of Kirill Seleznev, but Alexey Miller and law enforcement agencies turned a blind eye to this for some reason.

According to the correspondent The Moscow Post, the Finnish company Sponda sold 46 hectares for the construction of a logo park in the Leningrad region. The buyer was the company “Ventall-Development”, founded by the ex-manager of “Gazprom Energo” Alexei Mityushov, writes about this “Kommersant”. The company is implementing the same project in the Zhitnevo industrial area near Moscow.

Ventall-Development is a subsidiary of Ventall LLC, which is controlled by the closed-end mutual fund Azimut, its managing company, in turn, is Mercury Capital Trust. The structure of affiliated persons also includes Mityushov, as she wrote “Version”. Mityushov is a former classmate of Gazprom’s top manager Kirill Seleznev while studying at Voenmekh, said RBC. After graduation, he worked in Gazprom companies headed by Seleznev, including Gazprom Mezhregiongaz and Salavatneftekhimstroy.

Cycle (or round dance) of Gazprom

The founder of “Ventall-Development” along with the company “Ventall” and Sergey Zavarts, who has a 5% stake, is Valery Zhukov. He is also listed as the CEO of many Ventall-owned companies. In particular, the distribution centers “Kursky” and “Bryansky” are of interest. The share of the founder of these companies, Ventalla, is pledged to the Finservice bank, 15.8% of whose shares are owned (lo and behold!) by Mityushov.

Another 13% belong to a certain Natalia Konovalenko, who worked as Seleznev’s deputy at Gazprom Mezhregiongaz. According to the authors of the site Kompromat.wiki, allegedly she, along with her boss, could be involved in the withdrawal of funds from the company. But we will return to the story of Konovalenko a little later.

The remaining shares were distributed between Eduard Kartashyan and Seleznev’s half-brother Ivan Mironov, as he wrote RBC. Kartashyan in 2009-2013 headed the company Gazprom Stroytek Salavat, owned by Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat, at the head of the board of directors of which was then Seleznev.

Let us clarify that Zavartsev heads the “Corporate Center”, owned by Mityushov and “Sevinvest”, which was established by the same Mityushov. It turns out that “Ventall-Development” is actually a structure controlled by Seleznev’s henchman.

Several of the above-mentioned persons (namely Matyushkov, Kartashyan and Konovalenko) are still related to the Stroytransneftegaz company, most of which belonged to billionaire Gennady Timchenko until 2020, according to “Interfax”. The businessman sold his share, after which personnel changes began within the corporation – Gazprom managers were appointed to senior positions, which suggests that Seleznev’s team “subdued” this structure as well.

Kirill Seleznev, who is always lucky

Kirill Seleznev himself, who is called a close associate of the head of Gazprom, Alexei Miller, was a member of the board of the state corporation for more than 15 years. He resigned as head of Gazprom Mezhregiongaz in 2019, three months after the arrest of his adviser Raul Arashukov, who was accused of embezzling more than 30 billion rubles from Gazprom. Around the same time, Arashukov’s son, Rauf, was accused of involvement in the murder of Aslan Zhukov, a representative of the Circassian youth movement, and Fral Shebzukhov, an adviser to the President of the KChR, committed in 2010. As they wrote “News”the father of the accused may also be involved in ordering this crime.

How Kirill Seleznev and Alexey Miller ignored Putin’s decree

Let’s take a closer look at this episode.

Raul Arashukov got into Gazprom Mezhregiongaz in the early 2000s under the patronage of fellow villager Nazir Khapsirokov, who held the position of manager of affairs in the Prosecutor General’s Office. In 2011, Igor Sechin, then Russian Deputy Prime Minister for Fuel and Energy and Industry, arrived in the Stavropol Territory, where Arashukov was running schemes to steal Gazprom money.

He reported what he saw to President Putin himself, after which Arashukov, on the instructions of the head of state, should have been removed not only from his post, but also, in principle, from the structure of Gazprom. Nevertheless, the president’s order was not fulfilled – Seleznev transferred Arashukov to the head unit for the position of company adviser, where he continued to create his corruption schemes, as she wrote “Independent newspaper”.

There are rumors that the head of Gazprom himself, Alexei Miller, “had a hand” in ensuring that Arashukov stayed. Otherwise, Seleznev’s outright non-compliance with the president’s instructions would have been too bold a gesture. Does Miller really have his own interest in Arashuk’s schemes?

Now Seleznev is the head of Gazprom’s Rushimalliance and a multimillion-dollar Rusgazdobycha project to process ethane-containing gas in the Ust-Luga region. In addition, he owns the Baltic Investment Company. She, in turn, together with JSC Rusgazdobycha owns the company RGB Pererabotka Salavat, which, through several steps, is also related to Rushimalliance.

Photo: Rusprofile.ru

There are many interesting moments in Seleznev’s biography, and not all of them are related to corruption. For example, he is famous for inventing and disseminating information that his father is the former speaker of the State Duma Gennady Seleznev, although in fact the latter, according to official data, has only a daughter, and, according to family legend, they were so connected with his wife Irina strong love that Gazprom’s Seleznev cannot even be the illegitimate son of an ex-deputy (at least, this was the case at the beginning of Gennady Seleznev’s family life with his wife, when Kirill Seleznev was born in time). The Moscow Post I have written about this story in detail before.

Why Mr. top manager needed this bike, one can only guess. Perhaps, hiding behind the authority of an imaginary powerful “father”, he fought his way to the Gazprom Olympus.

Eyes wide shut

In the same material, we talked about Seleznev’s involvement in the theft, for which the former top manager of the Gazprom Mezhregiongaz division in the Omsk region, Sergei Podolny, and the former head of the Regional Strategic Development Fund, Alena Babiy, were imprisoned. They were accused of organizing “firms-gaskets” through which gas was “driven”, significantly raising the price of it.

Don’t you think that too often money “leaks” from the office controlled by Seleznev, and yet not a speck of dust settles on the former head of the company? .. At the same time, his company continues to show billions in losses, despite growing profits How understand this? ..

Photo: Rusprofile.ru

And this is the financial position of Rushimalliance:

Photo: Rusprofile.ru

So, it’s time to return to Natalia Konovalenko – Seleznev’s “right hand” in Gazprom Mezhregiongaz. According to the author of the article in the online publication “Top secret”, Konovalenko, having joined the company in 2007, until 2019, until she quit after her boss, she turned schemes with the appointment of suppliers to large contracts, who, in fact, did not produce anything, but simply won most of the tenders and received multimillion-dollar sums . Among the front companies were ANT-Inform LLC, Gazstroy North-West LLC, ProjectTechnology LLC and Arma LLC.

“ANT-Inform”, by the way, is still functioning, and its largest and only state customer is the Federal State Unitary Enterprise “Main Center for Special Communications” – a structure of the Federal Property Management Agency and the Ministry of Digital Development. Both contracts were terminated by agreement of the parties, part of the allocated money was paid to the supplier.

It seems that the scheme works not only for Gazprom.

If you think about how Gazprom’s money can so easily and naturally “flow” out of the company, you can assume with a high degree of certainty that the situation is “ruled” by offshore companies that pop up in the list of founders of companies affiliated to Seleznev and Mityushov. For example, behind the same “Sevinvest” through “Gap Development” stands “Nodate Invests Limited”. Until November 2018, Ventall had the offshore company Rautaruukki Oui among its founders.

Photo: Rusprofile.ru

Thus, it would be quite reasonable to assume that it is with the money withdrawn from the Gazprom enterprises by Seleznev, Mityushov and others like them that the Ventall-Development company is expanding its sphere of influence today.

However, as is usually the case in cases involving Seleznev, neither the head of the corporation, Miller, nor law enforcement agencies pay any attention to what is happening. But consumer gas prices keep going up and up…