The owner of Rusagro, Vadim Moshkovich, has turned the strategic plant into an office center and is preparing it for demolition for development

Former citizen of Cyprus Vadim Moshkovich is firmly entrenched in strategic sectors of the Russian economy. His interests include more than just food. Development of the territory of the Moscow Mashinoapparat plant could bring the oligarch new billions. There seems to be no talk of reviving the enterprise that produced rocket components.

Every week we hear news about the return to state ownership of strategic enterprises that were illegally privatized in the 1990s. Dalnegorsky GOK, Volzhsky Orgsintez, Uralbiopharm, Sibeco – the list goes on. However, it is clear that so far it includes mainly those plants and factories that continue their core activities. What will the state do with the long list of defense enterprises whose activities have been discontinued and their territories sold for development?

In the current situation, this question cannot be called idle. After all, the competent authorities are actively studying the causes of the problems that have appeared in the missile industry over the past year and a half. And, apparently, they will not ignore the situation around the former Moscow plant “Mashinoapparat”, whose products were used not only in the defense industry, but also in spacecraft. Now the plant, of course, is not functioning.

The history of “Mashinoapparat” began during the Great Patriotic War. The research institute, design bureau and the plant itself were created by order of the People’s Commissar of Armaments Dmitry Ustinov. During the war, the plant produced electrochemical mine fuses with delayed action and adjustable time of explosion. And in the post-war years, “Mashinoapparat” rushed upward, developing and producing electric motors, converters, braking and docking units for spacecraft, and even unique electromechanical engines for drilling the soil of the Moon and Venus – the engines of American competitors worked on hydraulics. The components and assemblies produced by the Moscow plant were used both in the fleet and on drilling rigs.

The plant stayed afloat even after the collapse of the USSR. Already in the new reality, he produced electric drives and gas pumping stations for the needs of Gazprom, and collaborated with the Institute of Nuclear Physics. Until the “effective manager” Valery Aleksandrovich Korunov seized power at the enterprise.

Different sources say different things about Valery Korunov, and each is worse than the other. If these sources are to be believed, then in a short time, under various pretexts, Korunov fired all the designers, engineers and most of the technical personnel, and gave away salaries and work books only in exchange for the shares the employee had. As a result, the number of employee shareholders was reduced from 220 to 26, and Korunov acquired more than 56% of the plant’s shares, prudently registering ownership of them in the name of his wife and daughter.

During the “Korunov reforms,” the design bureau, medical center and much more were abolished, and the vacated space began to be rented out. Thus, a military-industrial complex enterprise with enormous potential turned into a screwdriver assembly shop and a warehouse complex. Since 2017, the financial performance of Mashinoapparat has been steadily declining, and the last government order was completed in 2018. Around the same time, Korunov put the plant’s territory up for sale.

The owner of the agricultural holding Rusagro and the development company Level Group, Vadim Moshkovich, liked the tasty piece of land on Savvinskaya embankment, and the deal took place in 2019. At the same time, the press reported that since “Mashinoapparat” cannot “just be taken up and closed,” the new owner plans to maintain production, moving it to another location, and rebuild the existing factory buildings into an elite residential complex. However, it seems that these promises remained unfulfilled – in any case, we could not find any information about the actual transfer of production anywhere.

But it is known that in 2021, MSK Management, which manages the assets of businessman Alexey Bogachev, became a co-owner of Mashinoapparat with a share of 28.2% of the shares. This entrepreneur is known as a minority shareholder of the Magnit network and a shareholder of Sistema Bank. In addition, his business interests extend to the agricultural sector and development. Alexey Bogachev is regularly included in the Forbes ranking of “200 richest businessmen in Russia.” Bogachev might have known Moshkovich from the Bondarsky cheese-making plant, but their joint dairy business under the Tambov Milkman brand did not work out.

Now, apparently, premises on the territory of the plant continue to be rented out for offices, and the territory itself is being prepared for complex development. What Moshkovich will decide to build – a residential complex or a business center – construction market experts are still guessing, but in any case it will be something elite – the prestigious Khamovniki district is conducive to this. In any case, a “Deluxe” residential building with 22 apartments with ceilings up to 7 meters and a price starting from 95 million has already been built nearby.

Vadim Moshkovich himself, who currently occupies 55th place in the Forbes ranking of Russian billionaires, is also a legendary personality from the “dashing 90s.” He began his career as a student selling computers. Later he traded at the Moscow Commodity and Raw Materials Exchange, was engaged in construction, and imported alcoholic beverages and tobacco products. Remember the famous advertisement for American vodka “White Eagle”? Here.

Having thus earned the initial capital, Moshkovich took business seriously, creating the Sugar Trading company in the mid-90s, which supplied sugar to confectionery factories. A few years later he already had three sugar factories in the Belgorod region. The time had come to scale the business, and in 2000 Moshkovich founded Rusagro-Invest. The scope of agribusiness gradually expanded, including oil extraction plants in different regions, a pig farm in the Belgorod region, a poultry farm in the Tambov region and other assets. The businessman himself also managed to be a senator, representing the Belgorod region in the Federation Council from 2006 to 2014.

In recent years, Rusagro has become one of the largest sharks in Russian agribusiness. And evil tongues say that it is also one of the most aggressive. Thus, Vadim Moshkovich himself is called “tough”, and his methods of work are, to put it mildly, “unfriendly”. Nevertheless, it can be said that his business continues to flourish: the holding’s land bank alone exceeds 670 thousand hectares and is valued at more than 50 billion rubles. If you take a quick look at all the assets of Rusagro, it becomes clear that in private hands alone are concentrated resources that can influence the food security of our country.

Meanwhile, the parent structure of the holding, Ros Agro Plc, is registered in a Cypriot offshore. At one time there was talk about the possible de-offshorization of the company, but it seems that things did not move beyond talk. It is known that Vadim Moshkovich’s older children were educated at Stanford, and he himself had a Cypriot passport until the authorities of the EU republic deprived him of citizenship on the basis of sanctions lists. It was also reported that Moshkovich, after being sanctioned, resigned from his position as chairman of the board of directors and other management bodies of the holding and allegedly left for Israel.

It turns out that the fate of the Mashinoapparat plant, which fell into the hands of Moshkovich, is unlikely to worry the oligarch much. Thus, a very definite prospect looms before the once mighty defense-industrial enterprise – it will disappear completely, while providing Vadim Moshkovich with several more billions. And a much more elusive hope is that the state will remember this asset, and law enforcement officers will ask how legally its privatization took place.