As it became known to Kommersant, the 235th garrison court began considering a high-profile case of embezzlement of more than 260 million rubles allocated by the National Guard for the purchase of special equipment for the protection of Arctic ports. According to the investigation, in the fall of 2019, five combat boats were delivered to the Far North, the hulls of which were made of low-quality material and became unusable after a few weeks. The case file states that employees of the Main Directorate of Private Security (GUVO) of the Russian Guard and their colleagues from the Department for the Implementation of State Programs (DGP), having received a kickback in the amount of 30 million rubles, turned a blind eye to the shortcomings of combat ships, as well as to the inflated cost of snowmobiles purchased by the department and all-terrain vehicles. The alleged organizer of the fraud, the ex-head of one of the departments of the department, Shalva Museliani, disappeared and is wanted, and both ex-Rosguards and businessmen were in the dock.
There are 12 defendants in the case, which the 235th garrison court has begun to consider. Almost half of them were previously high-ranking employees of the Main Directorate of Defense and the DGP of the Russian Guard, who prepared and carried out purchases: the former head of the department for the formation of a unified technical policy of the Main Department of Defense Sergey Vorobyov, his deputy Alexander Shvetsov, deputy head of the public procurement department Alexander Zhilyakov, head of the procurement department for communications, automated command and control equipment of the DGP Ivan Makaveev and the head of the department’s contract service Sergey Ryzhkin. Also, according to Kommersant, the defendants in the case, according to Kommersant, are ex-Russian Guardsmen Roman Kharitonov, Andrei Chernykh, Konstantin Druzhinin and Ivan Budurovich, who received faulty equipment on the ground, as well as businessmen Nikolai Zhurkov, Pavel Vakulov and Sofia Bolkvadze. Entrepreneurs are charged with especially large-scale fraud (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), former National Guardsmen are charged with abuse of official powers or incitement to this crime (Article 285 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). In addition, Messrs. Vorobyov and Zhilyakov are charged with accepting bribes (Article 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), and Messrs. Vakulov and Zhurkov are charged with transferring a bribe on an especially large scale (Article 291 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
Another person involved in the investigation is businessman Alexander Beskrovny, according to Kommersant, the only one who pleaded guilty by entering into a pre-trial agreement. His case is separated into a separate proceeding.
None of the defendants plead guilty.
At a recent preliminary hearing, the military court denied the accused’s request for the return of materials to the prosecutor’s office. Note that the trial is taking place in the building of the Western District Military Court: the garrison did not have a hall to accommodate all its participants.
The case of embezzlement of funds allocated to the National Guard for the purchase of military equipment was investigated for three years. As Kommersant has already said, it was initiated after the hulls and cabins of five boats put on combat duty in the Arctic ports of Providence, Tiksi, Pevek and Sabetta in the winter of 2019/20, suddenly began to deform and crack. At first, the investigation was conducted against unidentified employees of the Chukotka department of the private security service of the Russian Guard, but soon the materials were transferred to the central office of the ICR, where they were taken over by the department for investigating crimes committed by law enforcement officials. After that, other episodes appeared in the case related to the purchase of special equipment for the needs of the National Guard, on May 25, 2021, Sergey Vorobyov was detained, and then eight more of his colleagues.
As follows from the materials of the case, in April 2018, the then head of the department for analysis, organization and development of measures for the anti-criminal protection of the objects of the GUVO, Colonel Shalva Museliani, who was going to resign in May of the same year, decided to make money on the supply of equipment for his department. The officer knew well both the nomenclature of purchases and the executors of state contracts. According to the investigation, in the period from April to November 2018, in order to implement the corruption plan, Mr. Museliani created a criminal group, which included his colleagues Sergey Vorobyov, Alexander Zhilyakov, Ivan Makaveev, Sergey Ryzhkin, as well as businesswoman Sofia Bolkvadze. After a short time, the woman convinced, according to the investigation, to join the group of businessmen Nikolai Zhurkov, Pavel Vakulov and Alexander Beskrovny.
According to the plan developed by Mr. Museliani, according to the case, the Russian Guardsmen were to receive a kickback from businessmen when purchasing mobile non-stationary protection systems by the Russian Guard. They were acquired within the framework of the state program for the socio-economic development of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation and were intended to protect the water area of four Arctic seaports.
It was supposed to purchase three all-terrain vehicles, five boats and eight snowmobiles with additional equipment complexes installed on them.
As follows from the materials of the case, the selection of contract executors allowed the organizer of the corruption scheme to control the entire process of public procurement and achieve an unreasonable increase in the maximum contract price already at the stage of preparing primary documents. This made bidding a mere formality. And having already received a rollback, Sergey Vorobyov had to ensure the unimpeded acceptance of products, the signing of the relevant acts, thus hiding all traces of theft.
In April 2018, Mr. Vorobyov, according to the case, when forming the initial application, made a 10% rollback into it, and these calculations were transferred to Messrs. Makaveev and Ryzhkin. Those, taking them as a basis, prepared the terms of reference and the rest of the documentation for the tender. Moreover, wanting to insure against checks of calculations, in August 2018, Mrs. Bolkvadze received fictitious commercial proposals for the conversion of civilian snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles for military needs from the little-known St. They, according to the investigation, for 22.9 million rubles. exceeded the real cost of such works. The woman sent proposals to Mr. Vorobyov via WhatsApp, who forwarded them to the executors in the DGP building on Maroseyka, 12 as an addition to the tender documentation. The package of documents for the tender was ready on August 21, 2018, after which the announcement of its holding appeared on the Unified Electronic Trading Platform. The only bidder was the St. Petersburg Research and Production Enterprise Aviation and Marine Electronics, which is part of the Defense Technologies concern, which was declared the winner. On November 12, 2018, a contract was signed with the winner. The total amount of the contract amounted to 376.2 million rubles, of which 239.1 million rubles. accounted for the purchase of five boats. At the same time, the investigation believes that the winner had neither the experience nor the technical ability to fulfill the state contract. Therefore, the businessmen, according to the case, attracted a subcontractor in Murmansk, who was engaged in the conversion of all-terrain vehicles, and found boats unsuitable for operation in the Far North. Their main drawback was the material from which the hulls and deckhouses were built. As follows from the case file, it was poor quality polyethylene. In addition, according to the conclusions of the investigation, the boats did not correspond to the dimensions declared in the state contract and were equipped with faulty devices. The damage in the case is estimated at 262 million rubles.
In March 2019, Shalva Museliani and Sergei Vorobyov, according to the case, met with Alexander Beskrovny, co-owner of Defense Technologies, and Nikolai Zhurkov, deputy director of the Neptune Central Design Bureau, in a restaurant near the GUVO building. During the conversation, Mr. Museliani, who came to the restaurant in a colonel’s uniform, explained that the supplied equipment would be accepted without complaints only if 30 million rubles were paid. The businessmen agreed and on March 21, in the area of the streets of Yamskoye Pole, they handed over the first 20 million rubles to the officer. After that, Mrs. Bolkvadze brought the missing amount from St. Petersburg, which she transferred to Sergei Vorobyov in tranches of 5 million rubles. in rented cars.
The money, according to the investigation, was distributed unevenly: Shalva Museliani got 19 million rubles, another 7 million rubles. Mr. Vorobyov took himself, and 4 million rubles. went to Alexander Zhilyakov, with 3 million rubles. colleagues handed him right in the office. The rest of the National Guard, according to the investigation, did not receive money, but counted on future promotions in the service.