Who takes Khalil Arslanov, the main person involved in the case of embezzlement in the defense industry, out of harm’s way

The arrest of Khalil Arslanov, former Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, was loud – still, one post is worth something. And the accusation of stealing almost seven billion rubles in armaments only fueled the interest of the public.

The arrest took place in February 2020. Two years later, the investigation did bring the case to its logical conclusion – it went to court. True, there were nuances. The case will be heard behind closed doors – allegedly because of the secrecy of the materials considered during the hearings. This is quite possible – we are talking about the development of weapons.

But another nuance is much more interesting – the most difficult episodes have disappeared from the initial charges brought against Arslanov. Allegedly, the investigation found no evidence. The episode with the purchase of Azart radio stations for the army, which was the most serious accusation, was withdrawn from the case – it was fraud that accounted for the lion’s share of the damage to the state – 6.7 billion rubles.

In the case, there were mainly episodes related to the supply of equipment for JSC Voentelecom under military contracts.

If initially Arslanov was charged with two articles – Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (fraud on an especially large scale) b taking a bribe (part 6 of article 290 of the Criminal Code), now it turned out that the first article falls out of the case. But it was she who was incriminated in the case of the purchase of Azartov. All that remained was a bribe in the amount of 12 million from the former director of the Yaroslavl Radio Plant, Sergei Yakushev, which Arslanov received in order for Yakushev’s enterprise to be involved in the production of Azarts, which were not included in the final charge.

These are purchases of routers and other equipment, as well as wires and other consumables from Russian manufacturers for almost 1.6 billion rubles. At the same time, the products, according to the investigation, were of Chinese origin in violation of contracts, and they were only assembled in Russia. The cost of some of them was again overestimated compared to the average market, according to the GSU TFR. In addition, according to the investigation, 191.4 million rubles were stolen by accomplices. out of almost 250 million allocated to Voentelecom within the framework of the “Complex of works on field supervision of monitoring and network management centers, monitoring systems for communication satellites”.

As for the episode withdrawn from the case, it is much more interesting and much more weighty aggravates the fate of the former deputy chief of the General Staff Khalil Arslanov.

The presentation of the sixth generation radio stations “Azart” took place in February 2012. The developers of Azartov stated that “a unique software and hardware solution for the new Russian radio station is the mode of pseudo-random tuning of the operating frequency at a speed of up to 20 thousand jumps per second, excluding any possibility of technical suppression of communications or signal interception.”

In fact, radio stations were actually purchased in finished form in China, and with the addition of some components they were assembled in Russia, which made it possible to significantly save on production.

Back in early 2022, the investigation estimated the damage from the purchase of 60,000 Azarts at 6.7 billion rubles. But in early May, the Prosecutor General’s Office approved and sent to the court the accusation in the Arslanov case. The episodes related to Voentelekom remained in the case, but the alleged fraud with Azarts was not included in it.

This is a brief excerpt from the entire plot of the case regarding Khalil Arslanov. The episode with the conclusion of the charge of stealing money on radios is interesting if you look at the investigation against other persons involved in the case together with Arslanov.

Arslanov’s subordinate, ex-head of the Main Directorate of Communications of the Ministry of Defense Alexander Ogloblin, who was responsible for preparing the specifications for the future Azarts, and who was involved in the bribe case with him, received only four and a half years in a penal colony with a fine of 800 thousand rubles. The court took into account that Ogloblin “repented and actively cooperated with the investigation.” Against the backdrop of almost seven billion embezzlement at Azarty alone, the punishment is striking in its mildness.

Another defendant in a high-profile case of embezzlement in the Ministry of Defense, the general director of the company “ERSI” Tatyana Ilyina, accused of embezzling more than 191 million rubles as part of a group in the implementation of state contracts with the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, received three and a half years in prison.

Ilyina was involved in the case of the supply of routers, which appear in the episode with a bribe in the amount of 12 million from the former director of the Yaroslavl Radio Plant, Sergei Yakushev. What is interesting is that the trial against the figurant took place in a special order – without examining the evidence, since Ilyina admitted her guilt.

Dmitry Semiletov, a former adviser to the head of the Voentelecom enterprise, through which the schemes were implemented, including on the Azart walkie-talkies, received four years in prison.

The first deputy director of Voentelecom, Oleg Savitsky, got off with four years and two months in prison.

The general director of Voentelekom, Alexander Davydov, is waiting for his verdict. Judging by the fate of his deputies, he can also count on the leniency of the judges.

Leonid Reiman, former communications minister and adviser to ex-president Dmitry Medvedev, was gently pulled out of the case. On January 28, 2021, the investigative and operational group conducted searches in the capital’s LLC Alternativa Capital, which includes NPO Angstrem. The founder of the LLC itself, which became the assignee of Angstrem Group LLC, is Leonid Reiman. But the investigation did not have any questions for him, it focused on the leadership of Alternative Capital.

All of them are defendants in the same case as Arslanov. And we are talking, remember, about billions of rubles. And for all the listed persons, the investigation for some reason decided to take the cases to a separate proceeding, thus “splitting up” the original charge. And all these “separate proceedings” ended with very mild sentences.

I don’t really want to give this analogy, but remember at least the same Navalny – for much smaller sins, he received a much more severe punishment. Meanwhile, the degrees of guilt, and indeed the acts themselves, are not just incomparable, but lie on completely different planes.

To understand what is at stake in the case of theft in the Ministry of Defense, we recall that the military operations in Ukraine showed the complete failure of the vaunted Russian equipment. The notorious “Armata” turned out to be a piece of useless metal, which they are ashamed to even show at parades. But for him, too, someone received a lot of money. And someone in the Ministry of Defense signed the relevant papers.

The whole world rolled with laughter when the Ukrainian military shot down another vaunted development of the Russian Ministry of Defense – the Orlan drone. And they showed the fuel tank for this “miracle of technology” – a plastic beer bottle taped with tape. And a Chinese camera glued to the drone.

It is not known whether Khalil Arslanov was involved in such “nanotechnology”, but we cite this shame with Orlan as a demonstration of what is happening in the Russian defense industry.

As for Arslanov himself, there is a strong impression that they want to let him go along the same path as those involved in his case who received strangely lenient sentences. The accusation is deliberately divided into parts, and the consideration of the case itself is dragged out, which, in general, reduces public interest and makes it possible to pass a verdict behind the scenes.
I wonder what kind of compromising information and on whom exactly does the former Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation Khalil Arslanov have in his bins?

PS Meanwhile, the “people’s avengers” got down to business – the son of Khalil Arslanov told the police about extorting 150 million rubles from him. He told law enforcement officers that they began to demand money from him in the first days after his father was placed in a pre-trial detention center. According to him, unknown people threaten Khalil Arslanov with big problems for refusing to pay.

“A young man received an SMS from an unfamiliar number, allegedly written by his father from the Moscow SIZO-1. The message said that the son should contact a certain Igor Borisovich, ”the channel’s source said, adding that the messages come in one of the popular instant messengers.

Of course, we are not talking about real people’s avengers, but about a banal racket. But all the same, the amount of 150 million rubles demanded by the extortionists indicates that they are aware of the financial situation of the “modest” officer of the Russian army.