Real money and dead souls of the defense special project of Maxim Charovsky

As it became known to Kommersant, a criminal case against a former employee of one of the most secret military enterprises – the head of the 101st department of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise “18 Central Research Institute” of the Russian Ministry of Defense Maxim Charovsky, was submitted to the court for consideration on the merits. Together with three accomplices, he is accused of fraud while working on the Elektra special project. To participate in it, Lieutenant Colonel Charovsky attracted a familiar head of a commercial structure, but, as the investigation believes, only in order to steal 14 million rubles from the budget. through the payment of salaries to the so-called dead souls. The case of one person involved, who received a suspended sentence, has already been considered by the court in a special order.

The criminal case against Lieutenant Colonel Maxim Charovsky is to be considered by the Moscow Garrison Military Court (MGVS). It has already been submitted to the court, distributed to the judge, who, however, has not yet set the date for the preliminary hearing.

The officer accused of particularly large-scale fraud (Article 4, Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) turned out to be the only one of the four defendants in the investigation who did not petition for a pre-trial agreement with the GVP.

According to the Main Military Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of Russia, in April 2018, the head of the 101st department of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise “18 Central Research Institute” of the Ministry of Defense Maxim Charovsky and the deputy head of the 508th military representative office of the Ministry of Defense Major Anton Nuzhnenko lobbied for the conclusion of an agreement with YuVS Avia LLC. The company headed by Vladimir Aghamalyan was supposed to carry out development work within the framework of the Elektra-OB special project “in order to create technological and design documents, manufacture a prototype, conduct tests and mass production of products.” It follows from open sources that the Federal State Unitary Enterprise is developing special equipment designed to carry out reconnaissance activities in the interests of the GRU with the help of satellites and drones. In this regard, its activities are classified.

As employees of the military counterintelligence department of the FSB established, all the work stipulated by the contract could and should have been carried out by the FSUE employees on their own. The company of Mr. Aghamalyan was attracted by the military allegedly exclusively for theft of budgetary funds through payments to the so-called dead souls.

Initially, the materials of the investigation featured transfers to cards to seven civilians in the amount of about 5.3 million rubles. However, subsequently the amount of damage increased to 14 million rubles.

It is worth noting that fraud in the execution of this state contract was revealed during the investigation of another criminal case, in which YuVS Avia LLC appeared as one of the contractors of the Ministry of Defense. It was within the framework of this fraud case that Vladimir Aghamalyan was detained in February 2022, and the Lytkarinsky City Court of the Moscow Region chose a preventive measure for him in the form of a ban on certain actions. And a month later, the general director of YuVS Avia was charged with embezzling money from the Federal State Unitary Enterprise 18 Central Research Institute of the Ministry of Defense.

According to Kommersant, Andrey Kharlamov, the former head of the 3rd department of the 261st military representative office of the Ministry of Defense, told the investigation about the role of Mr. Aghamalyan’s company in embezzling military money, who was convicted of receiving from merchants “out of selfish interest in control panels that do not meet the requirements of the state contract , which led to the impossibility of their use in the interests of the Russian Ministry of Defense, a decrease in combat readiness and the need to replace these products. In April 2023, for damages in the amount of 6 million rubles. Andrey Kharlamov received a suspended sentence in accordance with the verdict of the MGVS. Anton Nuzhnenko and Vladimir Aghamalyan also petitioned for consideration of cases in a special manner. The case of the former is now being heard in the same MGVS, and the materials regarding the general director of UVS Avia LLC have been received by the Preobrazhensky District Court of the capital. It was not possible to get comments from their defense “Kommersant” on Wednesday.

Sergey Bulaev, Lieutenant Colonel Charovsky’s lawyer, told Kommersant that his client’s position boils down to the fact that the work assigned to the merchants was carried out by them and they received a salary for this.

Interestingly, during the investigation, all of his defendants were either under a ban on certain actions, like Mr. Aghamalyan, or under house arrest. However, even before the completion of the investigative actions, the 235th garrison military court ordered that Maxim Charovsky be sent to a pre-trial detention center. The reason was the repeated violation by the accused of the earlier prohibitions imposed on him: he twice left the house without the permission of the investigator, and also used the Internet. The defense appealed this decision to the 2nd Western District Military Court, but that arrest was upheld. The defense hopes that the measure of restraint will be mitigated already during the consideration of the case on the merits, since then the officer will no longer be able to put pressure on his former accomplices and interfere with the investigating authorities.