While Rogozin is preparing for a flight to the moon, Roskosmos, under his command, is bankrupting its own legendary production facilities, leaving people without work.
According to the correspondent The Moscow Post, from 2019 to 2021, the Roscosmos State Corporation under the management of Dmitry Rogozin underwent an optimization of the number of personnel. As a result, every tenth employee of the group’s enterprises lost their jobs. And this is not about “cleaning managers” (cleaners), but about qualified employees: scientists, designers, engineers. In general, over 17 thousand people were laid off. Such data was published not only by Telegram channels, but also, for example, “News”.
However, the state corporation explains this decision precisely by optimization – so to speak, by reducing people without reducing labor productivity, and also by saving budget funds. “The reduction in the number of employees in the Russian space and rocket industry almost does not affect employees involved in real production,” this is the explanation of representatives of Roscosmos published yesterday. TASS. It is ridiculous to hear this from representatives of a state corporation, where theft of tens or even hundreds of thousands of rubles is annually revealed as part of corruption violations.
But again, this is not so much about probable corruption, but about the destruction of unique industries, unique teams, the country’s national heritage.
“Yura, we’ve lost everything”
The record for reductions was set by the Samara RCC “Progress” – every fifth employee was fired there. And this is the same “Progress” that built the ship “Vostok”, on which Yuri Gagarin first flew into space.
The same enterprise Dmitry Rogozin wanted to force Elon Musk to compete with Space X. I remember that even when the American inventor was just starting his journey into space, Rogozin made fun of him and his rockets. Now it’s not funny at all – Russia is literally being squeezed out of the market for commercial projects.
Rogozin suspected something was wrong back in 2018. Then he said that Russia cannot compete because it cannot raise the price of launches “in the interests of national security.” But already in 2020, when it became clear that it would not work to knock out additional funding from the budget, Roscosmos announced a reduction in the launch cost by 30% at once. Wrote about it RBC.
Has it helped to maintain its position in the market? No, our situation has only worsened. “Russia has lost its leading position in the market of space launch services due to the fact that it ignored the forecasts of its development,” says Alexander Medvedev. His words are quoted RIA News”.
It’s hard to disagree with him. A complete failure of strategic planning for the development of the industry. And who, if not the general director of Roskosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, should be responsible for this? But the latter continues to “puff out his cheeks” and talk about the colonization of the Moon, Mars, the creation of space stations.
Bankrupt your own so that strangers are afraid
Returning to the RCC “Progress”: its problems with the dismissal of a fifth of the employees do not end there. This is just an episode in the “development” of the enterprise. After all, back in 2020, already against the backdrop of cuts, the state corporation reduced the authorized capital of the structure by 3.7 billion rubles, and at the same time filed a lawsuit against its own subsidiary for 4.7 billion rubles.
It should be noted that now the RCC does not produce Progresses at all, but modern Soyuzes. That is, the head “Roskosmos” decided to drown in financial claims and now the main “forge” of the domestic Cosmos! They explained this by the fact that they are obliged to file claims in connection with the improper fulfillment of obligations under contracts. No clarification of details. Wrote about it “Vedomosti”.
Every fifth employee of the legendary RCC “Progress” was simply thrown out into the street. Photo: www.roscosmos.ru
And this is not the first lawsuit. Earlier, Roskosmos submitted another one – for 2 billion rubles. In 2019, he was satisfied with the court. And if we take as a basis the explanation of the improper execution of contracts, since the enterprise is controlled by Roskosmos, the management is appointed by it. And he organizes all the work.
And then he has the right to sue if this work was poorly organized!
Moreover, “Progress” is far from the first on the “distribution”. A couple of years ago it became known that the Arbitration Court of the Moscow Region received a lawsuit from the State Corporation Roscosmos against PJSC Rocket and Space Corporation Energia named after S.P. Korolev. It is also one of the country’s leading rocket and space enterprises. The corporation tried to recover more than half a billion rubles from PJSC, but in its claims refused.
This is not the first dispute between the parties. Over the past month, Roskosmos initiated two more proceedings with the Energia rocket and space corporation: in the amount of 325 million rubles (case № А40-342593/2019) and by 140 million rubles (№ А40-341905/2019). And they were also denied.
And when legal battles were going on in Moscow courts (the lawyers of Roskosmos agreed against the lawyers of Roskosmos – doesn’t it look like an unfunny anecdote?), the corruption agenda so familiar within the walls of the state corporation was again outlined.
In August 2020, it is believed that one of the closest associates of Dmitry Rogozin fell into the hands of law enforcement officers. Namely, the former general director of RSC Energia, Vladimir Solntsev, who at that time was already an adviser to the head of the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC). Together with him, the head of JSC NPP Istok named after Shokin (part of Roskosmos) Alexander Borisov was also detained.
They were suspected of particularly large theft in the supply of electronic component base for the module of the International Space Station. Wrote about it “Kommersant”.
If his guilt is proven, it is worth asking the question: what could lead to theft of this kind? To a monstrous accident right in space, an international scandal, the shameful expulsion of Russia from the list of space powers. Apparently, so that there would be no complaints against Borisov, he was transferred from the post of general director of the “daughter” of Roscosmos to another bread place. But it didn’t help.
Vladimir Solntsev certainly counted on the patronage of Rogozin, but he could not protect him from the criminal case. Photo: https://www.kommersant.ru/
Mr. Solntsev claimed that this case was a reprisal against the old team of RSC Energia and that he would die in a pre-trial detention center. Mr. Borisov, suffering from leukemia, asked to be left free, referring to the fact that he had not yet handed over large-scale production to President Vladimir Putin. Even if Solntsev’s words are true, this does no credit to Rogozin. It turns out that it’s not about corruption, but about the fact that the leadership wanted to put their people on the budget stream? Or is it corruption?
The Khrunichev center was saved … from Rogozin
If we consider reductions in the structures of the state corporation since 2019, then it would be useful to say about the debts accumulated at that time. Then the debt burden on Roskosmos exceeded 200 billion rubles. Most of them were at the long-suffering Khrunichev Center in the Moscow region. Wrote about it “Lenta.ru”.
Today, Roskosmos continues to sink into debt, while at the same time knocking out additional funding from the budget. But Rogozin cheerfully reports: in three years, the debt of the Khrunichev center has decreased 10 times. Only at the expense of what – at the expense of other enterprises, curtailment of production, new loans?
The casket opens simply: Rogozin’s first deputy, Maxim Ovchinnikov, spoke about the reasons. It turns out that it’s all about the same state support. “We literally snatched an industry enterprise from the clutches of bankruptcy,” he is quoted as saying. RIA News”.
Ovchinnikov noted that Roskosmos refinanced loans to industry enterprises in the amount of 26.1 billion rubles and restructured the debt on penalties for a total of about 12 billion. This is what they do under Rogozin – they count debts and pay fines for their own production failures.
But that’s not all. Indeed, during the same period, as it turns out, Roskosmos sold “non-core assets” in the amount of 9 billion rubles, and is completing transactions for another 6.4 billion. It is understandable – the company urgently gets rid of the wrong plants, enterprises, sites land, sanatoriums … Well, and employees who have become unnecessary.
And this is also not the final, because the center itself had to go under the knife. More precisely, in the first place – the expensive lands around it, which, as there were rumors, had an eye on the owner of the Kievskaya Ploshchad Group of Companies, God Nisanov. And then there was a rumor that Rogozin could “surrender” Nisanov the land of the center for commercial development. For which he allegedly even received an “advance” from the oligarch in the form of an apartment for half a billion rubles.
It is surprising how, as a result of Rogozin’s “optimization”, the Khrunichev Center survived after all. Photo: https://ria.ru/
I wrote about the situation with this apartment “Business Petersburg”. She really appeared at Rogozin’s from nowhere. He, of course, explained this by the usual exchange for housing in the center, and assured that it was not worth half a billion. One could believe it, but soon after that Rogozin’s son Alexei suddenly turned out to be a top manager of TPU Nagatinskaya LLC, which belongs to Nisanov’s structures and is developing a transport hub near the station. metro Nagatinskaya in Moskvek.
After information about this was leaked to the press, he quickly quit. But the sediment remained.
And no one gave the land of the Center to Nisanov, and indeed to no developer. At least for now.