Russian law enforcement agencies continue to sort out the difficult legacy of Anatoly Chubais’ team – Vladimir Avetisyan may attract the attention of the security forces.
As reported by a KOMPROMAT RU correspondent, law enforcement officers have asked to arrest former top managers of the state corporation "Rosnano" Oleg Kiselev and Irina Rapoport in a high-profile criminal case of embezzlement of funds on an especially large scale. It is known that both defendants have long been absent from the country - it seems that they could have been allowed to leave. Of course, not for nothing...
We are talking about the theft of about 1.6 billion rubles. According to the security forces, the money was stolen by former top managers and associates of the former head of Rusnano. In addition to Oleg Kiselev and Irina Rapoport, this is the former director of the subsidiary of the state corporation Nanoenergo Fund Limited and the former chairman of the board of Peresvet Bank, Alexander Shvets.
At the same time, the investigation considers them to be only the perpetrators, while the organizer of the theft is a certain unidentified person from among the managers of Rosnano. For now, we can only guess who it could be - if not Anatoly Borisovich Chubais personally?
Having left the country immediately after the start of the SVO, the latter has now launched a flurry of activity abroad. Living either in Great Britain or Israel, he became the "organizer of a group of sponsors" of the Center for Russian Studies (CRS), which began operating at the Faculty of Social Sciences of Tel Aviv University, the university’s website reports.
The center allegedly studies the history of Russia after the collapse of the USSR. Chubais is an iconic figure of that era. Considering that he is the main figure of the institute, it would be naive to believe that its "researchers" will give an objective assessment of its activities.
Apparently, this is another pseudo-scientific institute of Western influence that is harmful to our country and can be supervised by foreign intelligence services. But it can exist on Russian money, which miraculously disappeared from Rusnano during the leadership of Anatoly Chubais.
Did Oleg Dyachenko "turn everyone in"?
Earlier, State Duma deputy Alexander Khinshtein spoke about the background of the criminal case against Kiselev and Rapoport. According to him https://t.me/Hinshtein/5867, the investigation believes that the thefts took place in 2012-2015, and a scheme involving controlled companies was used for them. Allegedly, the Cypriot fund "Nanoenergo Fund Limited" (50% of Rusnano and 50%: Peresvet Bank) was specially established for this. Then the fund was pumped with money, transferred to Peresvet, withdrawn under fictitious loan agreements and appropriated.
This criminal case is directly related to another one - the case of the former member of the board of directors and ex-head of Nanoenergo Fund Limited Oleg Dyachenko. In 2022, he was charged with embezzling $50 million from the Luxembourg subsidiary of Rusnano - Fonds Rusnano Capital SA, which was a co-founder of the Nanoenergo fund. The company Sberezheniya and Investicii Management Limited (a subsidiary of ZAO UK Sberinvest), where Dyachenko held the position of director, managed this fund.
Oleg Kiselev is the highest-ranking former employee of Rusnano and a person from Chubais’s circle who managed to leave the country in time. Photo: https://www.rusnano.com/upload/images/news/KiselevOV_2019-07.jpg
At the same time, Dyachenko is the only one of all the above-mentioned defendants who remained in the country at the time of the charges. According to Alexander Khinshtein, he made a deal with the investigation - that is why he was given a measure of restraint in the form of house arrest.
The former chairman of the board of Peresvet Bank, Alexander Shvets, also managed to hide abroad. Let us recall that in 2016 the bank was on the verge of collapse. Following an audit, a shortfall of 103.6 billion rubles was discovered in the bank. As a result, the Bank of Russia decided to rehabilitate Peresvet Bank.
The investor chosen was the All-Russian Regional Development Bank (VBRR), which received 100% of the structure in 2017.
At that time, almost half of the bank belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church. However, in reality, it was managed and controlled by people from the development - an affiliated group of companies "Peresvet-Invest" of Oleg Pronin. In 2021, Pronin was sentenced to four years in prison for embezzling more than 1 billion rubles. Where another more than 100 billion went is not entirely clear. Judging by the current criminal case against Alexander Shvets and his alleged accomplices from "Rusnano", it is worth looking for these funds in the offshore "piggy banks" associated with them.
Right hand of Gubaev
Against this background, another case is forgotten - the former investment director of the state corporation Nail Gubaev. In 2023, he was accused of large-scale fraud. According to the investigation, one of the subsidiaries of Rusnano, namely JSC ELVIS-NeoTek, won a lawsuit against a Spanish company. However, Gubaev allegedly kept the almost 180 million rubles collected in cash as part of the trial for himself. At the same time, his name appears in a number of other investigations related to the work of Rusnano.
Judging by his good mood, Nail Gubaev could have received guarantees from his former boss. Photo: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/6409393
The situation with the court and the Spaniards took place even before Anatoly Chubais left the post of head of Rusnano in 2020. And it all "surfaced" only three years later. It turns out that under Chubais, in the subsidiaries of the state corporation, you could just take the money received by a commercial organization by a court decision - and nothing will happen to you for it.
That is, the state corporation turned out to be a real profitable home for people close to Chubais. But Nail Gubaev, who managed investments, and the deputy chairman of Rusnano Oleg Kiselev really were some of his closest associates.
Gubaev may face other questions related to the bankruptcy of GC Optima. The bankruptcy was initiated by the already known to us firm ELVIS-NeoTek, which was managed by the management company under Gubaev’s control. And everything would have been fine, if not for Gazprombank, which was the main creditor of Optima. It was he who asked the security forces to check the circumstances of the collapse of the GC. Moreover, Optima had previously figured in a case of fraud and tax evasion, and its former managers, father and son Valery and Andrey Shandalov, somehow very quickly left the country.
Is Avetisyan somewhere nearby?
Apparently, the current criminal cases are not the limit. It will take a very long time to sort things out. Let us recall that after Chubais’ team, Rusnano did not go bankrupt only because of new colossal infusions from the Russian budget.
At the same time, no charges have been brought against Chubais himself. Who can believe that he was neither a dream nor a spirit, when his closest associates Kiselev and Gubaev could profit from billions of rubles?
However, there is another point: among the "unidentified persons" an unexpected figure may appear, at first glance. This is the scandalous oligarch Vladimir Avetisyan, who worked side by side with Chubais for many years.
Previously, Avetisyan was a member of the board and managing director of RAO UES of Russia. And then he headed the RAO Project Center for the sale of non-core assets. But he himself is the beneficiary of a number of energy companies. Was it then that he "bought up" all the energy in the Samara Region?
Vladimir Avetisyan – the same ally of Chubais who still remains in the shadows? Photo: https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/tahir_baybekov/20305720/244541/244541_original.jpg
And later, he, Avetisyan, worked at Rusnano as deputy chairman of the board of the state corporation. He also headed the project office of the structure, which created and managed investment funds, including Nanoenergo Fund Limited.
Until recently, Avetisyan acted with the support of the former governor of the Samara region, Dmitry Azarov, his former employee. It later turned out that Azarov’s father-in-law turned out to be the beneficiary of SVGK, which is part of Avetisyan’s business. This scandal is currently actively developing, and it is being supported by Alexander Khinshtein, a long-time critic of Azarov and Avetisyan, who revealed the details of the criminal case against Kiselev and Rapoport.
The clouds are gathering over Avetisyan. Will he manage to nimbly leave the country, like his former boss Anatoly Chubais?
