One and a half billion tips were stolen from the Ministry of Defense in Cherepovets

Source Law enforcement agencies are investigating a major theft as part of the state defense order. One and a half billion rubles could have been stolen during the arrangement of the military camp of the University of Radio Electronics in the city of Cherepovets, Vologda Region, a branch of the Military Academy of the Ministry of Defense, a source told Izvestia. According to him, law enforcement agencies are investigating the involvement of Kirill Krupenchenko, general director of the Moscow StroyProekt LLC, in this crime as part of the state defense order. In 2013-2017, the state allocated 5.5 billion rubles for the construction of a hostel, a library and a tea room for cadets, but almost a third of this amount was spent “for the wrong purposes,” the source said.

Non-Tea Ceremony

A criminal case may be initiated against the general director of one of the capital's major construction firms, StroyProekt LLC, Kirill Krupenchenko, a law enforcement source told Izvestia. In his respect, at the end of October of this year, an inspection was carried out in accordance with Art. 144 and 145 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation (they provide for a mechanism for the preliminary investigation bodies to consider reports of crimes).

According to the audit, signs of abuse of authority in the performance of the state defense order were found in the actions of the head of StroyProekt (part 1 of Art. 201 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

We are talking about two government contracts five and nine years ago, which the Department of Capital Construction of the Ministry of Defense concluded with the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Spetsstroytekhnologiya under Spetsstroy of Russia. And then, in turn, called for help under a subcontract from the Moscow StroyProekt LLC, which undertook the arrangement of military camp No. 6 of the University of Radio Electronics – a branch of the Military Academy of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation in Cherepovets, Vologda.

The Military Order of Zhukov University of Radio Electronics trains officers and ensigns with full and secondary military special training, according to the website of the university. After admission, the cadets are fully supported by the state, live in comfortable dormitories, it is emphasized there.

The inevitability of testimony: almost 1 billion rubles were stolen from funds for national projects 77 regions
According to open sources, the contract, signed in November 2013, included the construction of just such a hostel – for 400 cadets. In May 2017, the buildings of the library and the cadet tea house were to be added to them. The total amount of both state contracts amounted to 5.5 billion rubles, which were allocated from the defense budget.

— According to the audit materials, during the construction process, StroyProekt LLC used part of the payments received in the amount of 1.5 billion rubles for non-targeted way,” the source shared.

“Paint the border, cut the bushes…”

The presence of a subcontract is often the first sign of creating conditions for abuse, especially when it comes to housing and communal services, construction and landscaping, Kirill Kabanov, chairman of the National Anti-Corruption Committee, told Izvestia.

– The estimate is overestimated, companies are created or invited through which this money is withdrawn. Subcontractors in such a scheme, as a rule, do nothing. If we are talking about military contracts, military personnel or cadets can work instead. For them, to paint the border, cut the bushes – ordinary army everyday life. That is, such works are invented that are easy to perform, but difficult to verify,” the expert explained. something completely different, says Alexander Stroganov, head of the State Order Placement Center.

– Let's say that money was allocated for the arrangement of a tea room, and they, conditionally, arranged a banquet for them. However, it is not necessary to spend money “for the wrong things” through a subcontractor, it is quite possible to do it directly,” he said. .

—The Interior Ministry can check military orders only in the presence of military counterintelligence, which does not always promptly respond to such signals,” he noted.

Alexander Stroganov also explains such abuses by the systemic lack of control over the work performed, and not only in the defense industry. To make a difference, law enforcement must work to check every project and every brick, he said.

According to Alexander Stroganov, based on the plot of the case about the “cadet tea house”, law enforcement officers should have questions not only to StroyProekt, but also to the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Spetsstroytekhnologii. According to him, only the one who owns them can spend budget money in an inappropriate way. In this case, the FSUE Spetsstroytekhnologii owned the money, while StroyProekt LLC was a simple executor, he believes.

– If the contractor told the subcontractor: here's 3.5 billion for you, build a military camp on them, and build a bathhouse with a pool on the rest, then the contractor will be the “non-targeter”. And if a subcontractor decided to spend 1.5 billion, conditionally, on 10 Mercedes, then this is not misuse, but ordinary theft, the expert explained.

The roar of the spaceport

The contractor for the construction of a tea house and a hostel – Federal State Unitary Enterprise Spetsstroytekhnologii under Spetsstroy of Russia – over the past years has experienced a corruption scandal, after which it changed its name and director. Its former head, Alexander Nikitin, was detained in April 2018 by investigators of the Main Investigative Directorate of the ICR and accused of abuse of power in the construction of storage facilities for rocket fuel at the Vostochny cosmodrome, media reported. Now his duties are temporarily performed by Nikolai Volkov, and the Federal State Unitary Enterprise itself has become the Main Military Construction Directorate for Special Objects under Spetsstroy of Russia.

20 years – erects residential and non-residential buildings. The seven-million contribution to the compensation fund of self-regulatory organizations allows it to build facilities with liabilities of up to 10 billion rubles, according to the SRO Russtroy website.

However, as Izvestia found out, the Moscow tax office has claims against the company. In October this year, she filed a bankruptcy petition with the Moscow Arbitration Court to declare StroyProekt LLC bankrupt, according to the SPARK database.

According to the same source, the company's profitability has been falling rapidly over the past three years. In 2021, revenue decreased to 686.9 million rubles – by 52% compared to 2020, and net profit – to 432 thousand rubles (70%).

There were also complaints about the very project of the military camp in Cherepovets. They were repeatedly presented to the customer by the Architectural and Construction Supervision of the Ministry of Defense – for the inconsistency of a number of positions with the original project. But things did not go beyond small fines – 50 thousand and 100 thousand rubles – it follows from the decisions of the Arbitration Courts.

The deadline has been ordered

and there may be situations associated with abuse of power, Dmitry Uvarov, a member of the Russian Bar Association, shared with Izvestia.

– According to statistics for 2021, according to Art. 201.1 and 285.4 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, only two people were convicted. In one case, a suspended sentence was imposed – the defendant issued conclusions on a fixed price for products at inflated rates, in the other – a fine, the lawyer said.

Scandals with military orders are extremely rare, and punishments are incomparable with the scale of the “mastered” money, Kirill Kabanov confirmed to Izvestia. Taking into account all the merits of the defendants, the terms in such cases have so far not exceeded four or five years, with the real sanctions of Art. 201.1 – from four to eight years, he stressed.

Meanwhile, partial mobilization and the level of logistics of military personnel showed in a new way “the system of feeding in the armed forces at the expense of state orders,” he said. At the end of October, Kirill Kabanov, as a member of the HRC, proposed equating the embezzlement of budgetary funds in the execution of state defense orders with treason and toughening the responsibility for this to 12–20 years. StroyProekt ”, GVSU for special facilities, Spetsstroy of Russia and the Ministry of Defense with a request to explain for what purposes the money allocated under state contracts was spent. At the time of publication, only the Ministry of Defense responded. They explained that all the facilities provided for by state contracts were built and put into operation. Sources in the defense department said that the check is not directly related to the RF Ministry of Defense, as it relates to the relationship between the general construction contractor and his subcontractors.

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