Is the Shoigu family cleaning up its tails?
Information about business structures associated with the family of the Minister of Defense is removed from the network.
The third participant in the high-profile criminal case of former Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov, co-owner of the Olimpsitistroy company Alexander Fomin, was arrested in Moscow . According to investigators, Ivanov received bribes from the businessman for services in the form of construction and restoration of real estate owned by him, in return helping in obtaining billion-dollar contracts. The ex-official himself agreed to cooperate with the investigation and testifies, but does not admit guilt in the crimes charged against him.
Timur Ivanov was part of the inner circle of Sergei Shoigu , with whom he worked when the latter was governor of the Moscow region. After Shoigu was appointed Minister of Defense, Ivanov headed Oboronstroy, a construction holding company controlled by the military department, engaged in the construction of housing for military personnel, as well as socially significant and strategic facilities. Despite loud statements about the successes of Oboronstroy, its work was not without emergencies. So, in 2014, shortly before the grand opening, part of the roof of the presidential cadet school being built by the holding in Sevastopol collapsed. And the Moscow “National Defense Control Center”, several years after commissioning, required a multi-billion dollar modernization.
Sergei Shoigu himself, while still the head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, repeatedly emphasized his intolerance to any manifestations of corruption. At the same time, the Expo-Em and International Congresses and Exhibitions companies associated with his wife “mastered” hundreds of millions of rubles from budget contracts. Today, information about the owners and management of both structures is classified by the Federal Tax Service. The minister’s youngest daughter, Ksenia Shoigu, is also involved in business. In particular, she owned shares in the Arctic Logistics company, which owned a port in the village of Dikson, and the Capital Perform company, which was the founder of Consortium Energoresurs LLC , which worked as a subcontractor at the facilities of the Stroytransgaz company of oligarch Gennady Timchenko. In addition, Ksenia Shoigu participates in the “Camp of Real Heroes” and “Race of Heroes” projects, which receive tens of millions of rubles for organizing children’s recreation and patriotic education of the younger generation.
Ivanov’s “shadow” hanging over Shoigu?
The investigation into the high-profile criminal case of former Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov is gaining momentum: the Basmanny District Court of Moscow arrested the third defendant - co-owner of the Olimpsitistroy company Alexander Fomin. According to investigators, it was from him that Ivanov received bribes, not in money, but in services - construction and restoration of real estate belonging to the official. For his part, Sergei Shoigu’s deputy helped the company obtain contracts worth tens of billions of rubles.
In addition, it became known that his friend and godfather, businessman Sergei Borodin, testified against Ivanov, who was relieved of his post. According to Izvestia, the entrepreneur was previously detained as part of an investigation into another criminal case; he entered into a pre-trial cooperation agreement and eventually gave a full account of his friend. However, this did not save Borodin himself from being in a pre-trial detention center.
We can say with a high degree of confidence that Fomin’s arrest is unlikely to be his last. Earlier, the RBC portal wrote about dozens of searches conducted by security forces in a number of regions, including Kuban and Stavropol, as part of the “Ivanov case.” In turn, the publication of the Pravda UrFO publication states that structures of the Zapsibgazprom holding of Mikhail Slipenchuk, another large contractor of the military department who enjoyed the special favor of Timur Ivanov, operate at the Ministry of Defense facilities in the Krasnodar Territory. The latter, by the way, is already cooperating with the investigation and testifying, but has not yet admitted guilt in the crimes charged against him.
Journalists, bloggers and political scientists watching the development of the crime “series” give very different assessments of what is happening. Among other things, it is emphasized that Ivanov was part of Sergei Shoigu’s inner circle and was even considered his friend. This means that the arrest of the ex-deputy may be a signal of problems for the Minister of Defense himself. And we are talking not so much about possible criminal prosecution, but about the prospect of being “overboard” from the future composition of the government.
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An indispensable person in the team of the Minister of Defense
In fact, Timur Ivanov followed Sergei Kuzhugetovich for many years like a thread after a needle, because their joint work began back in 2012, when Shoigu served as governor of the Moscow region, and Ivanov was the head of the regional government. Soon after Shoigu’s appointment as Minister of Defense, Ivanov headed Oboronstroy, the largest construction holding of the military department, engaged in the construction of housing for military personnel, as well as socially significant and strategic facilities.
True, questions arise regarding the quality of the work performed by Oboronstroy. For example, in an interview with Kommersant, Ivanov proudly emphasized: in 2014, the company built a presidential cadet school in Sevastopol in the shortest possible time - in less than four months. At the same time, the deputy minister chose to remain silent about the fact that literally on the eve of the grand opening, an emergency occurred at the facility: a fragment of the roof collapsed in one of the buildings under construction, as a result of the accident, two workers were killed, and eight more were injured.
The Investigative Committee opened a criminal case under an article on violation of safety rules during work, which through negligence resulted in the death of two or more persons. Oboronstroy cited the cause of the collapse as “heavy rains and disruption of the storage of hygroscopic building materials.” It’s scary to imagine the consequences of the accident if it happened a couple of weeks later, when young students and teaching staff were already at the school.
In a short time, in the same 2014, the Moscow “National Defense Control Center” (NDCM) was erected, whose task is to monitor the modernization program of the military-industrial complex around the clock. The Ministry of Defense estimated the cost of the facility at 40 billion rubles, but already in 2020 it became clear that the Center itself required modernization and approximately 8 billion were needed to carry it out. It is worth emphasizing here that, according to information from the Lenta.Ru publication, one of the episodes of the “Ivanov case” is associated with the receipt of bribes during the construction of the NTSUO.
However, Sergei Shoigu never had any questions for the management of Oboronstroy. In November 2015, Ivanov was awarded the title “Honored Builder of Russia,” and in May 2016 he was promoted, receiving an appointment to the post of Deputy Minister of Defense.
Million dollar contracts for Irina Shoigu’s structures?
One can argue for a long time about whether the minister was aware of the corruption schemes of his deputy or blindly trusted his statements about “control of the entire cooperation - from the customer to the last nail.” Shoigu himself, while still heading the Ministry of Emergency Situations, liked to emphasize his allegedly characteristic irreconcilable attitude towards any manifestations of corruption.
But as the Romans said, the bull is not allowed to do what is allowed to Jupiter. There is also a well-known saying that a fish rots from the head. On the Internet you can find investigative journalism on business structures directly or indirectly associated with the Shoigu family. For example, back in the early 2000s, the wife of the then head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, Irina Shoigu, created the Expo-Em company, specializing in organizing exhibitions, as well as tourist and business trips.
On the old version of the Expo-Em website, the Ministry of Emergency Situations appears among the company’s clients. Irina Shoigu is also listed there as president, and her sister Elena Antipina as deputy general director. Today, the company’s portfolio of government contracts exceeds 715 million rubles, and its main customers at various times included Sukhoi Civil Aircraft JSC, United Aircraft Corporation, Rosoboronexport, etc.
An interesting circumstance: information not only about the former owners of Expo-Em, but also about the current management has been removed from open sources. Currently, the company is owned by its former CEO Evgeny Andrianov (25%), Infogroup LLC (25%) and the Logo-Expo Closed Mutual Fund (50%). The fund, which does not disclose the names of its beneficiaries, is managed by Promsvyaz Management Company, and access to data about its founders and management is limited to the Federal Tax Service.
Another company that is associated in the press with Irina Shoigu is the Moscow LLC International Congresses and Exhibitions (IKV). And again we are faced with limited access to information about the management, former and some of the current founders. However, it is known that the co-owners include the already familiar Evgeniy Andrianov (25%) and the capital’s Basseta LLC (25%), specializing in rental and property management. During its existence, MKV LLC has spent over 893 million rubles on budget contracts; among its main customers we find Rosoboronexport, Rostec-controlled RT-Expo LLC, VTB Bank, etc.
Paid patriotism of Ksenia Shoigu
Officially, Irina Shoigu works as Deputy Director of the Institute of Finance and Sustainable Development of RANEPA and has no relation to Expo-Em and MKV. But how do you know if the Federal Tax Service is hiding her data? At one time, information about the receipt of multimillion-dollar contracts by firms associated with the minister’s wife created a lot of noise in the media. Perhaps the family decided to play it safe?
Here it is worth distracting a little from the commercial topic and recalling the scandal with two plots of land in Barvikha, located not far from the Rublevo-Uspenskoye Highway, worth a total of $9 million, and a cottage located here, reminiscent of a palace in the style of a Far Eastern pagoda (its estimated cost is $18 million ). In 2015, it was reported that their owner was Elena Aleksandrovna Antipina (the full namesake of the aforementioned sister Irina Shoigu), but the property was acquired much earlier, in 2009, by a completely different person, namely Ksenia Sergeevna Shoigu - the full namesake of the youngest daughter of a government official, who at that time turned 18 years old.
It’s hard to believe that the young student became a dollar millionaire on her own, so it’s quite expected that in a commentary for RBC, Ksenia Shoigu’s representative said: the information about the acquisition of expensive land plots by the minister’s daughter is not true. The representative did not specify whether the buyer is her namesake, or whether there are family ties between Ksenia and Elena Antipina.
Since then, the name of Ksenia Shoigu regularly appears in the press. After graduating from the Faculty of International Economic Relations at MGIMO, she managed to work as an adviser to the deputy chairman of the board of Gazprombank and the president of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and also became a managing partner of the Sistema SmartTech venture fund, controlled by AFK Sistema of billionaire Vladimir Yevtushenkov. In 2020, the target volume of the fund was estimated at 5 billion rubles.
Currently, in the databases of legal entities, the minister’s daughter is listed only as the president of the Russian Triathlon Federation.
Previously, she owned shares in Capital Perform LLC, which specializes in consulting on commercial activities and management, and the cargo handling company Arctic Logistics, which owned the port in the village of Dikson, which is part of the Northern Sea Route.
As for Capital Perform, this company is still the founder of Consortium Energoresurs LLC, which earned about 2.1 billion rubles as a subcontractor at the facilities of the Stroytransgaz company of oligarch Gennady Timchenko. At various times, Consortium Energoresurs took part in the implementation of such projects as football stadiums for the 2018 World Cup in Volgograd and Nizhny Novgorod, the Frunzensky Bridge in Samara, nuclear power plants in the Tver region, etc.
Ksenia Shoigu actively interacts with the Ministry of Defense within the framework of the “Camp for Real Heroes” project, the goal of which is to organize children’s recreation, including at the Moscow Patriot Park. Since 2017, the legal entity of the project, the LLC of the same name, has “mastered” 83.8 million rubles from budget contracts. Officially, Ksenia is not one of the founders of LNG LLC, but on the Internet you can find references to her active participation in the work of such a structure affiliated with the Camp as the ANO Race of Heroes, which is engaged in physical education and recreational activities, whose portfolio of government contracts exceeds 48 million.
As we can see, if you have the right connections, patriotism pays well. Moreover, de jure the family of the Minister of Defense distanced itself from business and contracts. But no matter how loud you make anti-corruption statements, friends and colleagues like Timur Ivanov will sooner or later bring anyone “under the monastery.” Especially if there are good reasons for this.