The trial in the criminal case of the ex-deputy of the Rostov parliament and the former head of the regional branch of Rosselkhozbank Igor Pyatigorets has come to an end. More than five years have passed since the initiation of the case and until the announcement of the verdict to the banker. True, initially he was a witness on the fact of the theft of more than 170 million rubles from a credit institution. Moreover, at the first stages of the investigation, the amount was about 400 million. It is noteworthy that Pyategorets personally turned to law enforcement officers with a request for help to repay loan debts. And in the end, he himself became a figurant. It was found that with the participation of the head of the RSHB branch, several obviously bad loans were issued. The scheme involved entrepreneurs doing business in the agricultural sector. These are the director of the Saturn company, Sergey Klimenko, and the owner of Unity, Yakov Sevastyanov. The scams started back in 2015. Pyatigorets’ lawyer insisted that all loans were economically justified. One of them was cited as evidence – 60 credit million rubles, for example, were taken on the security of land plots of “Unity” with a total value of 100 million. Allegedly, after her client left the bank in 2017, Rosselkhozbank was able to return his money through Arbitration. Saturn was a little different. About 46 million rubles were taken on credit for the purchase of equipment from Vadim Zhukov’s Oreol company. But Klimenko did not buy anything, although according to the documents everything went as it should. And the head of one of the branches of the bank Alexei Voitko, who at the time of the indictment in this case, was under investigation for a bribe, helped with the execution of a fictitious loan. By that time, he had already managed to get to the post of deputy head of the district administration. Later, Klimenko admits that he forged papers, including for the economic justification of the loan. Klimenko and Sevastyanov made a deal with the investigation, and their cases were considered in a special order. Actually, the testimony of entrepreneurs became the basis for the accusation of Pyatigorets. Klymenko received three years in a general regime colony in the fall of 2020. Sevastyanov was also convicted. The other day, sentences were announced to three more participants in the schematosis. Pyatigorsk was appointed eight and a half years. Together with him, Anna Ghetto, the former head of one of the departments of the Rostov Rosselkhozbank, was also involved in the case. The court gave her 10 months less than the boss. Entrepreneur Vadim Zhukov was awarded a six-year general regime.
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The Ust-Katav Carriage Works (UKVZ, part of the state corporation Roscosmos) has begun purchasing new equipment to expand production capacity. In particular, a tender has been announced to select a contractor providing leasing services for screw-cutting lathes: we are talking about five new complexes worth 87 million rubles. Also, the enterprise will purchase three machines for resistance spot welding for 4 million. Director General of UKVZ Roman Novikov spoke about the relevant plans two years ago. The need for this is associated with growing obligations: this year alone, the plant must supply 74 new trams to the Ministry of Roads and Transport of the Chelyabinsk Region with a total cost of 5.47 billion rubles. UKVZ itself does not own additional production capacities or relevant competencies for their production, and therefore is forced to purchase most of the equipment and components from third-party enterprises. Last February alone, the plant placed tenders on open sites for a total of 1.15 billion rubles, with the most expensive purchases being made in the format “from a single supplier”. These include contracts for the supply of software and hardware control systems for 271 million rubles, gearboxes for rolling stock worth 224 million and sets of door systems for tram cars for 117 million. them payment for the supply of components and equipment. For example, two lawsuits were immediately filed with the Moscow Arbitration Court by the St. Petersburg LLC Chergos, the debt to which is 24 million rubles. Another St. Petersburg enterprise, Guten Krep LLC, is seeking the payment of 19 million rubles of the principal debt and more than 2 million penalties for failure to meet payment deadlines under contracts signed in the summer of 2021 in court. In turn, UKVZ filed a counterclaim for payment of a penalty for late delivery of products in the amount of 150 thousand rubles. According to representatives of the expert community, the plant could have avoided additional expenses if its top management were more involved in the production process. It is known that the UKVZ itself is registered in Moscow, where its leadership is based, which visits Ust-Katav for short visits. On the other hand, General Director Roman Novikov registered an individual entrepreneur in the capital with the main activity “rent and management of non-residential real estate” and is currently suing the Moscow Department of Property, demanding that the extension to the building erected by the businessman at the address: Karmanitsky Lane, 9 be recognized as unauthorized and demolished.
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Only two months have passed, and the security forces of the Irkutsk region have apparently already fulfilled their plan for corruption cases. Although in such cases there should not be any framework. The main rule should be – to bring to justice all the embezzlers and swindlers who have settled in the bureaucratic and law enforcement spheres, and in the rest too. The mayor of Svirsk, Vladimir Ornoev, became a pioneer in the new year. He was suspected of embezzlement of 1.5 million rubles and abuse of power. According to investigators, he paid for the production and installation of the art object, although it had already been paid for before. There are too many BUTs in this case, which we talked about in detail. Ornoev, probably, simply became a hostage to the inflexibility of the legislation. A couple of weeks later it became known about the detention of another mayor. This time, the head of the Taiturka, Stepan Buyakov, came into view. He was caught taking a bribe of 300,000 rubles from a man whom he promised to help win the auction for the purchase of land. There was also a third mayor – the head of Urik Andrey Poberezhny. The official received more than 400 thousand rubles for the victory of the contracting office at the auction, which was supposed to equip playgrounds at inflated prices. The corruption “piggy bank” of 2023 was replenished with the deputy head of the Slyudyansky district Yuri Azorin. Exceeding official powers manifested itself classically – he signed acts of acceptance of the construction of the school without actually carrying out these works. As a result, the contractor “Domostroy Profi” robbed the budget of more than 50 million rubles. Also, Mr. Azorin was charged with extorting a bribe of 1.5 million rubles for the patronage of a company that carried out major repairs of educational institutions. But he managed to get only a sixth of the specified amount. Two traffic cops from Slyudyansk were also detained for bribery. The police for two years robbed drivers for failing to draw up reports of violations. The “collection” of bribe professions also includes doctors from the Irkutsk Psychoneurological Dispensary. According to the materials of the case, two doctors, three intermediaries and seven bribe givers are involved. Doctors put on stream the issuance of certificates for obtaining weapons and driving vehicles without passing a commission. Last year also passed in a corruption-loud way. For fraud with protective maxi, the former head of the regional Ministry of Health, Natalia Lebedeva, was convicted for almost seven years. Her son Ilya Belousov, who received 8.5 years, was also involved in the case. Six and a half years was given to ex-Minister of the Forest Complex Sergei Sheverda. He was accused of illegal felling of trees under the guise of sanitary cleaning. The son of the former governor of the Irkutsk region Andrei Levchenko and his accomplices also fell under the distribution of prison terms. He turned up fraudulent cases in the supply of elevator equipment and deservedly received 9 years. Now he is trying to challenge this decision. The first deputy minister of construction, Irina Khudyakova, was sentenced to the same term for a bribe of 2 million rubles. This list can be continued for quite some time. And this is just one Russian region…
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Last December, Vladimir Khristenko, the son of former Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko and the stepson of Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova, who had held this position since 2015, resigned from the post of president of Nanolek. At the same time, the owner of the enterprise, founded in 2011 with the participation of the state corporation Rosnano, remains unchanged: Nanolek LLC de jure belongs to the Cypriot offshore Nanolek Holding Limited, whose ultimate beneficiaries are not disclosed. It is known that Rosnano invested about 1.3 billion rubles in the company. In 2019, there were reports that Pharmstandard of Vladimir Khristenko and his business partner Mikhail Nekrasov, as well as other private investors, bought out a share of the corporation for 2.35 billion rubles. The transaction was not transparent, but, according to the same Nekrasov, who holds the post of general director of Nanolek, the share of Rosnano was bought out at the expense of borrowed funds. It is possible that the finance was provided by Sberbank, which, until January 23 of this year, had 100% of the pharmaceutical company as a pledge. The top manager once explained the presence of an offshore owner by the specifics of the legislation in force in Cyprus, which makes it easier to regulate possible conflicts between the founders. The change of “registration” of the company did not follow even after last year’s inclusion of Cyprus in the list of unfriendly countries. For a long time, state contracts were a key component of Khristenko Jr.’s pharmaceutical business. It is known that the financial growth of Pharmstandard and the creation of Nanolek occurred during the period when Tatyana Golikova served as Minister of Health. Both companies have become major drug suppliers to government agencies, but Nanolek ran into difficulties last year. The company became a production partner of the FNTs im. Chumakov, who developed the KoviVak vaccine. Initially, it was planned to produce up to 10 million doses of the drug annually, but after the release of 3 million doses, work had to be curtailed due to lack of demand. In total, Nanolek acted as a supplier under 149 contracts worth almost 20 billion rubles. Since 2014, the company’s revenue has been growing, amounting to 19 billion in 2021, with a net profit of 2.3 billion. It is possible that now Vladimir Khristenko will focus on new startups, including those related to real estate in Dubai. The situation in Rosnano also does not inspire optimism, in the structures of which, after the dismissal of Anatoly Chubais and his departure from Russia, a number of criminal cases were initiated, the corporation’s debts were estimated at 97 billion rubles at the end of last year, and in the fall, at the government level, the issue of its possible liquidation.
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A large metropolitan shopping and entertainment complex “Metropolis” is bought out by a Kazakh oligarch. They are trying to cash in on tenants to the maximum by tightening lease agreements in recent months. It is quite possible that this is done in order to replace them with specific tenants with a major benefit to the new owners. According to rumors, the idea to make the lease as unprofitable as possible belongs to Capital Parthers. It is this development company that is going to buy the shopping mall from the American investment companies Morgan Stanley and Hines. Capital partners are an oligarch from Kazakhstan, Serzhan Zhumashov, and a Turkish citizen, Burak Oymen. They have many interests in Russia, especially since they are ranked among the now oppressed Nazarbayev team. In their case, it is much more reliable to change the business field. And it cannot be said that it is new for them: the Megapolis shopping center was built by Capital Parthers and in 2013 it was sold to the Americans for as much as $1.2 billion. The construction loan was received through the Finnish bank Nordea. Moreover, the money went by roundabout offshore routes that led to the final recipient, Serzhan Zhumashov. The bank itself fell into an international scandal, and it was not the Baltic waters that tarnished its reputation, but the Caribbean. The bank created postal firms, which were formally run by a lawyer’s office from Panama, but in reality Nordea’s clients. The management of the credit institution stated that they have introduced transaction control procedures that exclude schemes for withdrawing money from taxation. However, experts believe that this is far from the case. Capital Partners could avoid paying extra taxes and use these offshore channels to repay the loan funds that had been deposited into Zhumashov’s account for several years. It is not known how many such revolutions could have been. In Moscow alone, the company implemented, in addition to Metropolis, four more expensive projects. Keeping assets in Russia is difficult, you need to enlist support in the political sphere. In this regard, there are persistent rumors that Serzhan Zhumashov found one in the person of the head of the Liberal Democratic Party, Leonid Slutsky. The party of the latter, due to the crisis, is in dire need of sponsorship injections. Rumors are based on the allegations of some open sources that the Slutsky family, presumably since 2019, has been living in the elite Turkish village of Six Senses Kaplankaya, which is part of the joint project of Zhumashov and Burak Oymen. Perhaps there is something more behind this fact. Although the head of the Liberal Democratic Party can bet on other sponsors, for example, God Nisanov, the owner of Kievskaya Ploshchad. Slutsky can be connected with him through a probable relative of the oligarch Mardakhai Yushvaev, who allegedly paid part of the cost of a car owned by the mother of Leonid Eduardovich. Such an oligarchic environment, if you think about it, is not so beneficial for the party. It could tear her apart.
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After last year’s presidential order to carry out a major overhaul of the Peter and Paul Fortress, the contract for the reconstruction of the historical object was won by the PSB Zhilstroy company: for 1.3 billion rubles, the contractor must restore the granite facades of Petropavlovka. Earlier, the same company received a contract for the reconstruction of the Music Hall theater building worth 9.5 billion rubles, and in November, work began on the conservation of the remains of the Nevskaya Manufactory building that survived the April 2021 fire. It is assumed that the object will be rebuilt into a residential complex, which will become part of the Ideal City project; the proceeds from the sale of apartments after its implementation is estimated at 85 billion rubles. PSB Zhilstroy, which is mastering budgetary finance, is part of the structure of the BFA-Development group, whose CEO is Lyudmila Kogan, the widow of the St. Petersburg billionaire, the former largest co-owner of Uralsib Bank Vladimir Kogan, who inherited from her late husband a stake in a credit institution. It is known that structures associated with an influential family at one time participated in the financing of the gubernatorial campaign of Alexander Beglov. In particular, about 1 million rubles were donated by the Spetsenergoservis company, affiliated with the construction company Energostroy, whose founder and head Konstantin Ivanov is the son of Viktor Ivanov, business partner of Lyudmila Kogan, who was one of the co-founders of PSB Zhilstroy. In addition, Lyudmila Kogan has been maintaining friendly contacts for many years with Ksenia Malinina, an associate professor at the St. where he lives in his own villa). The niece of the governor, Yekaterina Beglova, who holds the position of adviser to the general director of the State Museum of the History of St. It is known that the Vozrozhdenie company, which specializes in carrying out large-scale restoration work, also took part in the auction. However, the tender documentation was drawn up in such a way that PSB Zhilstroy won the auction, which had not completed any major projects at that time. Claims against the firm of Lyudmila Kogan also arose during the auction for the reconstruction of the Music Hall: then two of the four members of the procurement commission rejected the application of PSB Zhilstroy, recognizing it as not meeting the requirements of the tender due to lack of work experience at large historical sites. The company was able to get a multibillion-dollar contract thanks to the deputy head of the City Administration’s Construction Committee, Alexander Postrash, the former chairman of the procurement commission with a decisive vote.
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Russian oligarchs with enviable regularity continue to refute the well-known phraseological unit from the 90s: “the greed of the fraer ruined.” It only enriches them. So the family of Valery Ponomarev has little fish in the Barents Sea, an airline, a bank, now they need vineyards in the Krymsky district of the Krasnodar Territory. The wife of the senator from the Kamchatka Territory, Ekaterina, acquired 50% of the assets of Ordo LLC and stood on a par with the major winemakers of the Kuban, such as Alexander Tkachev, Sergey Galitsky and Boris Titov. At the disposal of Ponomareva is half of the Krasnodar economy with land of 174 hectares. According to the plan, from 2025 the winery will produce 1.5-2 million bottles per year in the premium segment. In total, the senator’s wife was named the founder in three LLCs: SVK, Vityaz-Avto and Interna. All of them are registered in the Kamchatka Territory. Viticulture can become a more reliable investment than all the previous ones. So, until 2020, 49% of Okeanrybflota JSC belonged to Valery Ponomarev. After the bankruptcy of Interprombank, where he was a shareholder, the group of companies transferred the rights to catch over 3.6 thousand tons of cod per year to the seaside group Sigma Marine Technology. The conduct of the fish business itself was accompanied by regular scandals. In 2018, Delta Fish Ltd, which is part of Okeanrybflot, did not share a 60-hectare fishing area with Boris Nevzorov’s organization Ustkamchatryba. The head of Delta then wrote a letter to the All-Russian Association of Fisheries with a request to review the results of the auction, because the competitor allegedly provided false information about the number of its employees. The terms of the contract provided for a 20-year lease of the site with the possibility of extracting up to one and a half thousand tons of sockeye salmon. So the potential revenue of a hundred million dollars was worth fighting for. In 2019, there was a big scandal with a potential business partner of the senator. Caribou-Tour LLC, as a result of the auction, also received Karaginsky Island in the Bering Sea for use for 49 years. The rent for the use of wildlife objects is 90 thousand rubles a year. Ecologists believe that illegal tours for the prey of rare birds are covered with a screen of legal hunting for an animal. Apparently, the surname of one of the founders of the company, ethnic Korean Alexander Yentyakovich De, leads them to these thoughts. His father Yong Tyak De in Kamchatka is known for his criminal exploits, for which he received a criminal record back in the 90s. Now Mr. De is engaged in business and, together with Valery Ponomarev, owns Okeanrybflot and AK Vityaz-Aero LLC. Not everything is going smoothly with Vityaz-Aero either. This company provides air services, and very poor quality. Since 2015, its helicopters have made three hard landings, resulting in injuries and even casualties. And finally, an international scandal. In 2015, it became known about the construction of a villa in the elite village of La Zagaleta, in Spain. It soon became clear that the site belongs to the Xareni Development company, which is managed by Zoya Ponomareva. She is also listed as the director of several other companies: Argon LLC and Znak Holding LLC, replacing her father in this post. And all this is only the visible part of the iceberg of Senator Ponomarev’s business empire.
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Attempts to recultivate the Dzhida plant continue to be futile. More than three billion rubles have been allocated for the disposal of waste from the enterprise in Buryatia. However, the problem is not moving forward. Almost thirty thousand people are exposed to heavy metals, at risk of cancer and other diseases. In the city of Zakamensk, which is on the border with Mongolia, at the foot of the mountains, on an area of more than a thousand hectares, there is a steppe with 45 million tons of toxic sand. In the center of it, the ruins of the once city-forming enterprise of the Dzhida tungsten-molybdenum plant are no longer towering. Having existed for 62 years, it has become a threat to people and nature. In 1996, the production was closed due to loss of profitability (the ore became much poorer). And tons of man-made waste remained on the surface of the soil, contaminating the soil and water. For lead alone, the maximum permissible concentration was exceeded 50 times in soil, and in water from public wells – 4 times. Iron in the same water is 21 times higher than the allowable value. Despite the seriousness of the situation, according to the results of the examinations – an environmental disaster, the authorities of Buryatia have not been in a hurry to dispose of waste for 26 years. And the issue of their reclamation was not raised immediately, but a few years after the bankruptcy of the enterprise, the entire financial burden fell on the federal budget. In 2002, local officials, together with Sibtsvetmet, developed the first project with a long title “Liquidation of the negative impacts of technogenic tailings of the Dzhida tungsten-molybdenum plant in the Zakamensky district of the Republic of Buryatia.” It was planned to allocate 2.5 billion rubles from the country’s budget, and another half a billion from the republican treasury. And in 2007 ZAO Zakamensk began to mine tungsten and gold right in the technogenic area of Barun-Naryn. And only in 2011 the company received the first 500 million for liquidation. In the course of it, waste was transported from two urban sites to the Barun-Naryn tailing dump, the top layer of the earth was replenished with fertile soil and planted with larches. All these activities had the opposite effect on the ecology of the region. This is because in the process of transportation, the compacted waste was loosened, raising toxic dust. Residents of Zakamensk were outraged, attracting the attention of environmentalists, including international ones. As a result, the enterprise suspended its activities until 2013, when, having received 142 million, it again began reclamation. In 2014, the Ministry of Natural Resources of Buryatia entered into an agreement with Gidrospetsstroy LLC. For 24.5 million, the company was supposed to develop design documentation for the elimination of the environmental consequences of the FESCO, but did not include treatment facilities in the project, which is why it did not pass the state examination. However, part of the money was still allocated to them, and a year later the contract was terminated. For such a premature allocation of budgetary funds, the ex-head of the Ministry of Natural Resources of Buryatia, Yuri Safyanov, personally incurred criminal liability. The executive power withdrew itself from solving the environmental problem, and the allocated subsidies returned to the federal budget. Five competitions followed, which were won by the same Zakamensk. The company had to get rid of two million tons of sand. They did not take anything out, they simply covered it with fertile soil and again forgot about storm water. In 2015, the company earned an administrative fine of 3 million rubles. There were many reasons: the lack of expertise for the use of tailings and the transfer of technogenic sands to lands not intended for this, violation of the law “On Subsoil” in the extraction of tungsten and gold. In this regard, the prosecutor’s office ordered the Ministry of Natural Resources of Buryatia to eliminate the environmental consequences of the FEMK’s activities themselves. And twice in 2018 and 2021. Officials did not comment on their inaction in any way, silently spreading their hands. But last year it became known that the ministry had only prepared a project that could cost 100 million rubles.
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The Danish logistics company Maersk, which left Russia, sold its sites in St. Petersburg and Novorossiysk to the Cypriot offshore IG Finance Development Limited, the beneficiary of which is the Latvian citizen Sergey Kubraks living in Ireland. He owns a number of assets in Ukraine, in particular, he is one of the co-owners of the Smelyansk Electromechanical Plant. In Russia, the offshore controlled by Kubrax acted as the founder of the New Investment Group, the sole owner and CEO of which today is Sergey Zhdanov, a possible representative of the interests of the Latvian businessman. Zhdanov and his partner Zurab Kavtaradze are among the beneficiaries of the Bugulma Electric Pump Plant (BEPP), which previously belonged to a number of offshore structures. Last year, several Russian enterprises became the new owners of BEZ, whose owners and management are also connected with offshore companies, to whose accounts not only the funds of the unprofitable enterprises of Zhdanov and Kavtaradze, but also billions received in the form of loans from the Bashkir Soda Company can be withdrawn. It is known that BSK, which has its own multibillion-dollar liabilities to banks, issued loans to the New Investment Group, Benz, as well as Moscow-based Siena LLC, which has offshore connections. One of the shareholders of BEZZ was the recently liquidated metropolitan OOO Representative Office of NPP SEMZ, which may be affiliated with the Ukrainian Smelyansky Electromechanical Plant owned by Kubrax. The management of the purchased Maersk sites, according to the concluded agreement, will be entrusted to the Arosa company, the owner of which is Rustem Mirgalimov, a native of Tatarstan, who worked at Ak Bars Bank under the supervision of the infamous Robert Musin, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison as part of an investigation into embezzlement funds of the bankrupt Tatfondbank. As for the “offshore schemes” of BEZ, they could be implemented with the approval of the top management of Rostec, whose structures are actively cooperating with the Bugulma enterprise.
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Businessman Oleg Tinkov asked the UK to remove him from the sanctions list. He filed a corresponding petition with the British Foreign Office. “It would be fair to remove sanctions from me, and this would mean that Western sanctions are not directed at all Russians, but only at those who support Putin and the war,” Tinkov said in a statement. Businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who lives in the UK, also sent a request to the British Foreign Office to lift sanctions against Tinkov. In October last year, Tinkov renounced Russian citizenship. He posted on Instagram a photo of a certificate of renunciation of Russian citizenship.