The development of the latest weapons was not found even on paper

As it became known to Kommersant, the military investigation department (AFU) of the TFR in Moscow completed the investigation of a criminal case against senior employees of the 46th Central Research Institute (TsNII) of the Ministry of Defense. According to the case file, the institute’s money was transferred to contractors under contracts for research work, which were not actually carried out. It is interesting that at the initial stage of the investigation there were two defendants – the head of the second department of the Central Research Institute, Colonel Mikhail Kotov and his deputy Vasily Kozlanzhi, and now there are 25 defendants, among them there are employees of the Russian Academy of Missile and Artillery Sciences. The amount of damage amounted to 275 million rubles. The defendants plead not guilty.

The Moscow Garrison Military Prosecutor’s Office approved the indictment in the criminal case of embezzlement of funds from the 46th Central Research Institute of the Ministry of Defense, and more than 300 volumes of investigation materials were recently delivered to the 2nd Western District Military Court, where the trial will take place. The choice of the district court, and not the city level, is due to the fact that a significant part of the case materials is classified as “secret”.

The investigation of the facts of theft of funds at the Research Institute of the Armed Forces of Ukraine of the ICR in Moscow began to be engaged in November 2018, initiating a criminal case under Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (large-scale fraud). The first defendants in the case appeared in January 2019. They were the head of the department of the institute Mikhail Kotov and his deputy Vasily Kozlanzhi.

According to investigators, from 2016 to 2018, Colonel Kotov, together with his accomplices, executed fictitious contracts with commercial structures to carry out research work for the 46th Central Research Institute.

However, the work recorded in the contracts, according to the case, was not completed, while the money was transferred to the contractors. It should be noted that the embezzlement of budgetary funds, according to the investigation, was carried out as part of the state armament program until 2027, worth more than 19 trillion rubles, in the implementation of which the 46th Central Research Institute plays an important role.

In particular, as it was established during the investigation, some episodes were related to about a dozen contracts that the 46th Central Research Institute of the Ministry of Defense concluded with the Russian Academy of Missile and Artillery Sciences (RARAN). They concerned developments related to the creation, operation and use of modern weapons, military and special equipment. The volume of research work was so large that the 46th Central Research Institute could not carry out all of them on its own, therefore, according to the investigation, third-party organizations were involved as subcontractors to work on “certified” projects (even the names of some of them were considered secret).

In addition to fraud in the performance of work under contracts, the case says, Mr. Kozlanzhi stole 74 million rubles from the accounts of the Central Research Institute. under the guise of paying salaries to people who had nothing to do with the military developments of the institute and did not even work in it. The investigation counted more than a hundred such “dead souls”.

Initially, the investigation estimated the damage in the case at 250 million rubles, but in the course of the investigation it grew, as did the number of defendants.

As a result, there were 25 defendants: according to a Kommersant source, about two-thirds of them were employees of the institute, the rest were from the RARAN. All of them are currently under house arrest and will travel to court hearings on their own. And the damage caused to the military department, as a result, the investigation estimated at 275 million rubles.

According to the lawyer of Colonel Kotov Sergey Chernyakov, his client, refusing to talk about the essence of the criminal case due to the presence of secret materials in it, unequivocally asserts that the budget money was used for its intended purpose – work under contracts under the state defense order was completed, the customer has no complaints , developments are actively used, including in the NWO zone. “Now the court has a whole team of defendants, so it is important to understand whether it has such a room that can accommodate all participants in the process and conduct hearings under normal conditions,” added lawyer Chernyakov.