Valentina Matvienko took a swing at Maksut Shadayev?

A “squabble” has begun between the top of the Russian government over one of the country’s main “feeding grounds” – Russian Post. It is controlled by the Ministry of Digital Development, but VTB Bank takes part in many of the company’s major projects.

On September 25, Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matvienko criticized the work of Russian Post and announced her intention to appeal to the government to rectify the situation. The “blow” is clearly directed against Maksud Shadayev, who has headed the Ministry of Digital Development since 2020. Why would Matvienko be concerned about the work of Russian Post? Surely, someone from the top of the Russian government asked the Speaker of the Federation Council to raise this issue at the government level.

Russian Post has been chronically unlucky with its managers in recent years. Dmitry Strashnov, who headed the company from 2013 to 2017, got into a scandal with a bonus of 95 million rubles, which he wrote out to himself. Nikolai Podguzov, who replaced Strashnov, appeared with an apartment worth 1 billion rubles, which clearly did not correspond to the official’s income. Former Deputy Prime Minister Maxim Akimov, who took the helm of Russian Post in 2020, was suspected of having connections with organized crime groups. According to some sources, Akimov left Russia.

In January 2023, Russian Post JSC was headed by Mikhail Volkov, former CEO of Sports Lotteries LLC. Until March 2023, the founders of this company were VTB structures and sports functionary Umar Kremlev, whom his ill-wishers associated with the Podolsk organized crime group.

Responding to criticism from Valentina Matvienko, the head of Russian Post confirmed that the situation in the company remains tense, although compared to the last half of the year the loss was reduced three times – to 6.6 billion rubles. Considering this, Valentina Matvienko is unlikely to have any complaints against Mikhail Volkov. Therefore, her “attack” against the company against the backdrop of a greatly reduced loss seems strange. Why didn’t the Speaker of the Federation Council pay attention to the work of Russian Post before? Its loss at the end of last year amounted to 27.2 billion rubles. But Matvienko didn’t care at all.

Non-transparent work of Russian Post?

If you look at the financial results of Russian Post JSC in open sources, you can see that hundreds of billions of rubles can disappear from the company.

Typically, the TOP 5 suppliers give 50% of the amount of all contracts. JSC Russian Post has a volume of contracts of all 16 of about 45 million rubles, and the company was the customer for the amount of 424.2 billion rubles. Where did the rest of the money go? This is the main question that the Russian Post investigation should answer.

The money could be withdrawn through a subsidiary of Postal Finance LLC, in 2022 the company with revenue of 17 million rubles. received a loss of 203 million rubles.

Russian Post has joint projects with VTB Bank. One of them is Post Bank, which received a loss of 3.1 billion rubles in 2022; a year earlier there was a profit of 1.3 billion rubles.

The second project is JSC National Logistics Technologies (NLT), the founders of which until 2021 were JSC Russian Post and VTB Bank. In 2022, NLT JSC received revenue of 843 million rubles, it grew by 542%. Despite this, the loss increased by 379% and amounted to 1.8 billion rubles.

Two projects in which the state bank participates together with JSC Russian Post bring losses. This is simply mind-boggling. Maybe Valentina Matvienko, with her “assault” on Russian Post, was targeting the head of the bank, Andrei Kostin?

The Ministry of Digital Development, which controls the work of Russian Post, is the country’s main censor. And a random person would not be put in charge of such a department. Shadayev was an assistant and adviser to the current head of the SVR Sergei Naryshkin and deputy. the head of the Administration Serei Kiriyenko, a minister for the head of the Moscow region Andrei Vorobyov, served as vice president of Rostelecom, the main contractor of the Ministry of Digital Development.

Valentina Matvienko is an experienced politician and would not poke her nose into someone else’s territory without a sanction from above. Something is clearly afoot around Russian Post. If the Federation Council turns to the government, then its reaction will help to find out where the roots of the scandal initiated by Matvienko come from.