Maksimenko “bowed in” to the “automatic” system of Rostec
Rostec’s subsidiaries supply the St. Petersburg State Unitary Enterprise with equipment from China and the unfriendly Czech Republic and Hungary.
In St. Petersburg, for several days there was a large-scale failure in the parking payment system in the city center. Now it has been restored, but it is not a fact that what happened will not happen again. Officials explain the incident as a transition to domestic equipment.
As we managed to find out, the notorious “domestic” could actually come from the Czech Republic, Hungary and allied China, unfriendly to the Russian Federation. Lately, officials and businessmen have often been caught passing off parts from the Middle Kingdom as import-substituted Russian-made analogues.
Millions abroad
The St. Petersburg State Public Institution “City Parking Management Center” (St. Petersburg State Unitary Enterprise “GTsUP”) is responsible for parking, but electronic equipment is purchased through the St. Petersburg State Unitary Enterprise “St. Petersburg Information and Analytical Center” (St. Petersburg State Unitary Enterprise “SPB IAC”), headed by Andrey Maksimenko.
Last year, with a difference of a month, GCUP concluded two contracts with St. Petersburg IAC for testing, commissioning of parking meter systems and other related services. Judging by the text of the agreement, it was necessary to develop the system almost from scratch.
Photo: Government procurement
St. Petersburg IAC, in turn, a couple of months later was pleased with the almost billion-dollar contract from JSC Concern Avtomatika, which is part of Rostec. According to the agreement, the company was supposed to supply switches and automatic data processing devices. These devices are used to create systems similar to the one required by GCUP.
As it turned out during the study of the text of the agreement between Avtomatika and St. Petersburg IAC, the equipment that the Rostec subsidiary sold to St. Petersburg was only partially Russian. In the “country of origin” column, China, Russia and … the Czech Republic and Hungary are indicated!
Photo: Government procurement
Our top managers of Mr. Chemezov are engaged in remarkable import substitution!
Similar contracts were concluded with subsidiaries of Avtomatika – 895 million went to National Technologies. Another 749 – to the “National Center for Informatization”. And although the contract with the latter stipulates that the country of origin of the goods should be Russia, who knows what the department will actually receive?
By thumb
It is worth noting here that Avtomatika and its structures have more than once come to the attention of The Moscow Post in connection with supplies from China. For example, in 2021, a large investigation entitled “Milling machine with the Rostec nameplate” was published on the pages of our publication. It was inspired by the detention of businesswoman Diana Kaledina, who was captured by the security forces for supplying overpriced machines made in China, which, with the wave of some “magic wand,” turned into products of the domestic machine tool industry with a brightly drawn nameplate.
The reason for the development was the contract concluded by the Baltic Industrial Company with JSC Scientific and Production Enterprise Signal, which is part of Avtomatika.
In 2020, it turned out that the ventilator produced by the Ural Instrument-Making Plant, which is part of Rostec, could only have a Russian nameplate. Years go by and nothing changes.
And already in the current year – 2023, the Ministry of Industry and Trade made a fuss because it suspected that the antennas supplied by Avtomatika were also not very similar to domestic products. It is assumed that about 300 million rubles could be stolen by inflating the value of the contract. Information about this was released on the 20th of June. And literally a week later it turned out that the general director of Avtomatika, Andrei Motorko, had been detained.
He is suspected of fraud, but it is not yet clear on which of the above-mentioned episodes. Or maybe on everything at once and on the parking topic in addition?
Motorko was replaced by Ivan Yuryevich Bratukhin, the former acting director of the Signal Research and Production Enterprise. Yes, the same one who purchased Chinese equipment from Ms. Kaledina in 2016.
Having arrived at the post, the first thing he did, of course, was improve the living conditions of the employees – one must think that he did not offend himself. Avtomatika joined the Development motivation program, which provides special conditions at Novikombank (core for Rostec) for distinguished employees. One must think that they distinguished themselves in the opinion of its general director.
But these are all lyrics.
Rumor has it that Avtomatika has long established a “scapegoating” system, when thefts are committed, known to the top management, the funds obtained in this way are divided, and subsequently one person is made to answer. In one case it was Kaledina, in the other – Motorko? As you can see, the schemes do not change, and Avtomatika continues to supply foreign products.
Under Bratukhin, no contracts have yet been concluded. We will monitor developments.
Andrey Motorko. Photo: admoblkaluga.ru
Are there arrests coming?
As for St. Petersburg IAC and its general director Andrey Maksimenko, there may also be considerable scope for investigation by the special services. First, the company has been steadily hiding its suppliers in recent months. This is what they do, for example, in the military departments – roughly speaking, so that the enemy does not find out state secrets. What secrets could “SPB IAC” have, if not corrupt ones?
But the contra still “brings them into the public eye” for some suppliers. In addition to the Rostec subsidiaries, among them there is also Netrika, which is owned by Artyom Moshkov. The media, citing their unofficial sources, wrote that the company is connected with the interests of the ex-head of the Kalininsky district, accused of fraud on an especially large scale while working for post of head of the Committee on Informatization. As journalists quote their sources, allegedly “Moshkov is a punk figurehead brought by Gromov Jr. to Smolny to cut up budgets.”
Is it possible to believe that if Netrika is related to the “cutting of budgets,” then St. Petersburg IAC, which gave it a total of 43 government contracts worth 698 million rubles, is not? True, this was from 2015 to 2018, when St. Petersburg IAC was headed by Evgeniy Valerievich Gerus, who, after a quiet resignation, “dissolved” in the St. Petersburg State Institution “MFC” until 2022, and has now completely disappeared from the radar.
Whether the new head, Andrei Maksimenko, who arrived from the Tomsk region, will also be able to “dissolve” in a delicate manner after we found out that his institution accepts Chinese, Hungarian and Czech equipment – time will tell.
