Editorial colleagues “Kompromat-Ural» note that in the “strategically important” region for Russia – the Arctic – billions of dollars are annually lost, which can end up in the pockets of Defense Ministry officials – up to Minister Sergei Shoigu.
A regular meeting was recently held at which Vladimir Putin raised the issue of the Arctic. He said that in the context of sanctions, it is necessary to ensure uninterrupted work in the Arctic regions – it was, among other things, about ensuring supplies, building social facilities.
At the same time, just a month ago, two businessmen from “RusAlliance Stroy” (RAS) Alexei Eckert and Dmitry Bushmanov, who were accused of embezzling 2.9 billion rubles on the construction of defense facilities in the Arctic. They were released, having counted them a day in a pre-trial detention center for a day and a half of imprisonment, although literally in 2020 they were sentenced to 9 years in prison.
The situation around the businessmen is interesting – there is a possibility that they were imprisoned for “intractability”, putting in their place “their” people who could take and “master” the budget money. Could Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu himself be involved in the case?
Who does not pay – he sits
Eckert and Bushmanov took up the Arctic back in 2014 – again, when the president once again emphasized the need to develop the region. Their “RAS” won the competition for the construction of military facilities on Wrangel Island, Cape Schmidt and the Novaya Zemlya archipelago.
At first everything went well – the company received an advance and began work, which was supposed to be completed in 2015. However, “RAS” had a conflict with the customer: “Main Department of Engineering Works No. 2 at Spetsstroy of Russia” (now FSUE GSVGU No. 14) at first refused to accept the infrastructure, and then announced that the businessmen had robbed the state, wrote “Kommersant”.
The entrepreneurs stated that everything happened in fact due to the fact that they refused to pay a kickback in the amount of 20% of the contract amount, backing up their words with an audio recording of a conversation with the acting head of the organization subordinated to the Ministry of Defense Oleg Sirazetdinov and former RAS employee Mikhail Kazantsev, who the moment of recording was his subordinate.
The corresponding video was posted on the RusAlliance Stroy YouTube channel. A year later, Eckert and Bushmanov were taken on charges of embezzlement of budget funds and put behind bars.
Way to “feeders”
Literally in the same year, Spetsstroy-1 LLC, which has all the signs of fictitiousness (including the authorized capital of 10 thousand rubles) entered the objects made by RAS. They received more than 2.5 billion rubles in advance for the completion of facilities.
It is interesting that its owner, Yevgeny Gorbachev, was a lawyer in a company involved as a subcontractor for construction in the Arctic at the time when RAS was working there. By the way, the firm, whose interests were represented by Gorbachev, did not start at that time. In principle, the same thing happened with Spetsstroy-1.
The objects were never handed over. Rumor has it that the office simply took the money and passed off the objects created by “RAS” as their own. Moreover, in this case, the contract with the office was terminated only three years after its expiration – the Ministry of Defense is somehow very selective in our work. The funny thing is that the documents on the termination of the contract indicated that Spetsstroy-1 completed work in the amount of 0 rubles, while receiving an advance payment of almost two billion. Where, you ask, did this money go?
By the way, among other things, there was almost no money in the company at the time of the conclusion of the contract – now it has almost 2 billion, which suddenly appeared in the company after 2017. Around that time, Gorbachev emerged from it. Did he actually lose control of the company? Most likely, yes, because since 2018 she has not received government contracts. It’s funny, without government money, revenue began to grow. Is it because the company left its former head?
Shoigu “by the side”
The reward for Gorbachev’s “work” was a high position – in 2017 he sold the company and became the head of the Main Directorate for the Arrangement of Troops (GUOV) – a structure that “under the wing” of which is all military construction! That is, he sat very close to Sergei Shoigu himself. Was it not at his suggestion that all these Arctic affairs were carried out?
A year later, the department nevertheless filed a lawsuit against Spetsstroy-1 in order to return the money. Everything is clean on paper, but what actually happened there and whether the money returned to the state treasury is an open question.
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Only in 2021 did the investigators finally get to Gorbachev – he was charged with embezzlement at the construction of facilities in the Arctic for a relatively small amount of 232 million rubles compared to the 2.5 billion received by Spetsstroy-1. rubles. It turned out that the stolen money was spent through fictitious contracts to the accounts of Formatika LLC and Sanplast LLC controlled by the company. The investigation also confirmed that the company passed off the objects of “RAS” as its own, reported RBC.
By the way, during the period when Gorbachev served as head of the GUOV, the department also began to lose money, despite billions in budget handouts. True, the financial position of “GUOV” in the last year of Gorbachev’s “reign” is covered with a veil of darkness, which also leads to certain thoughts. Has the namesake of the first president of the USSR become Shoigu’s “purse”?
In the meantime, Gorbachev is waiting for a court decision in a pre-trial detention center, and Eckart and Bushmanov are reaping the fruits of their own honesty, and their company is going bankrupt, Shoigu continues to calmly occupy his post and there are no questions asked. Who knows, maybe after Putin’s next “look” towards the Arctic, everything will change? – the Moscow Post argues in a publication titled “Shoigu’s adventures in the Arctic: where budget billions disappear.”
