The case of the head of the Main Directorate of Communications of the RF Armed Forces, General, arrested on suspicion of corruption Vadim Shamarin may be associated with the Telta plant. Back in 2023, its management became involved in a fraud case.
What is the general accused of?
The arrested head of the Main Communications Directorate of the RF Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Vadim Shamarin, is accused of receiving a bribe on an especially large scale (36 million rubles). According to investigators, for this money he could provide patronage in the distribution of state contracts to the Perm telephone plant “Telta”.
Shamarin himself does not admit his guilt. During interrogations, he stated that he had no influence on the volume of orders for special communications devices. They say that their number and types are formed in accordance with the requests of troops and military command and control bodies. Moreover, the entire nomenklatura is allegedly approved by the Chief of the General Staff, and he himself only signs the agreements.
What is known about Shamarin’s possible partners
Meanwhile, the names of those involved in the criminal case from possible bribe-payers have appeared: 36 million rubles “for general patronage” of a military official were allegedly collected by the general director and chief accountant of the Perm telephone plant Telta. The current general director of the company is Olga Podkolzinaand is responsible for finances Elena Grishina.
Before Olga Podkolzina, the plant was led by Alexey Vysokov And Igor Morozov. The latter was also the sole owner of the enterprise until he transferred it to his common-law wife. Both directors and the chief accountant of Telta, Elena Grishina, are now defendants in another case, initiated under Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism) (fraud) on June 2, 2023.
All three were arrested according to the orders of the Khamovnichesky District Court of Moscow a couple of weeks after that – on July 20. They were charged with theft of funds in 2014–2023 during the supply of telephone sets to Perm Telephone Plant Telta OJSC under government contracts for the needs of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism). The court hearings are being held with the participation of the military prosecutor of the 3rd Supervision Department of the Enforcement Supervision Directorate laws in the investigation of crimes by the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office.
Since 2014, the plant has attracted significant federal funds for the modernization of special communications in Russia (*aggressor country). In 2015–2016, Telta completed contracts worth more than 442 million rubles for the Ministry of Defense, Voentelecom and enterprises of the military-industrial complex.
Since there is little public information on this case, the Perm media discussed several versions of what was happening. According to one of them, the plant supplied government agencies (primarily the Ministry of Defense) with Chinese equipment under the guise of Russian. Allegedly, it turned out that not only spare parts were imported, but even the entire products themselves: on the supplied products, it seemed that the logos were simply re-glued from Chinese to Russian.
According to another version, the products were shipped to customers at inflated prices and with long delays. This is indirectly evidenced by several claims of the Ministry of Defense sent in 2021–2022 to the Moscow Arbitration Court. They talked about collecting a penalty from Telta for failure to fulfill the contract. By the way, in most cases the court refused to satisfy the demands of the ministry.
It is possible that both versions put forward by local journalists could be part of the same process, in which forgery, inflated prices, and missed delivery dates took place.
How the Telta plant came into being
The Perm Telephone Plant has been operating since 1941 and has long been a supplier of communications equipment for the Russian Ministry of Defense, among other things, “Prestige” telephone sets designed for connection to special communications networks.
Now the enterprise is entirely owned by only one person – the common-law wife of Perm businessman Igor Morozov, Anna Karpova. The Morozovs took ownership of the enterprise literally bit by bit: since the 90s, the businessman and his father, starting with a stake of only 15.6%, methodically bought up shares of the plant. They seemed to act assertively and brazenly: for example, at the beginning of the 2000s, while they were still far from being owners, they were accused of stealing the property of an enterprise. Allegedly, then they transferred various production and other premises, including even bomb shelters, to the ownership of their individual entrepreneurs.
The process of consolidating assets was completed by the end of 2009: by this time, Igor Morozov turned out to be the sole owner of the enterprise. Even the same Elena Grishina, who had a minority stake of 0.0007%, was “expelled” from the co-owners. In return, she joined the board of directors and was responsible for all the finances of the enterprise. And a year later, the plant had a new owner – the Moscow company UK Center, registered to Anna Karpova. The businessman himself has since owned all of Telta's operating subsidiaries.
Who else can own a business?
At the same time, the main intrigue in the regional media back in 2020–2021 was whether the enterprise actually belonged to the Morozov family. Allegedly, in recent years they have been only nominal owners, and the real one is a certain businessman Vladimir Sadilov.
Indeed, in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, a person with this name was listed in the list of members of the board of directors of the enterprise, but opposite his full name is now marked “former”. By the way, Sadilov’s business partner turned out to be Anatoly Zak, the owner of the notorious Lame Horse nightclub, where 156 people burned to death in 2009.
Where is the ex-owner of the plant?
Igor Morozov has been in a pre-trial detention center since last summer. Most recently – on May 2 of this year – the Moscow City Court extended the term of detention of the former owner of the Perm Telta telephone plant. It seems that the basis for the decision was the testimony of a certain witness in the case, who allegedly received some kind of threats against him.
Perhaps the current arrest of General Vadim Shamarin, as well as top managers of the Perm Telephone Plant, is a continuation of the old story with the supply of equipment for the needs of the Ministry of Defense.