The construction of the M-12 highway in Bashkiria and the Urals was in danger of disruption

The construction of the section of the federal highway M-12 between Bashkiria and the Sverdlovsk region may be disrupted, as the Moscow-based contractor RSK does not pay people salaries, its debt has already exceeded 440 million rubles. The builders and employees of the company told about the current situation on February 26.

The road segment between the village of Dyurtyuli in Bashkiria and the urban-type settlement of Achit in the Sverdlovsk region was planned as a link between the expressway Moscow – Kazan and Yekaterinburg inside the M-12 highway, which was supposed to become a corridor between St. Petersburg and Vladivostok.

Traffic on the M-12 from Moscow to Kazan was launched in December 2023, and the 275 km long section, where construction has now stalled, was supposed to be opened at the second stage. The rebuilt four-lane highway ends at the border of Bashkiria, from there the highway goes into the highlands, and this difficult stretch is only half finished. At a certain point, work here was almost completely stopped, and most of the equipment was taken from the site, the premises for road workers were empty.

"That they don't pay salaries, yes, they don't. We weren't paid either," one of the workers shared.

The construction on this site was carried out by the Moscow company RSK, and in the first year everything was in order. Difficulties arose in the summer of 2024. The investigation found that the company's management did not transfer the salaries of almost 2 thousand employees, the total debt is already more than 440 million

"Well, there are potatoes, carrots, some preparations, pickles, jams. How other people live and survive, I do not know. I can say that I, my son, and my spouse work in this organization. It turns out that all three of us depend on this company, because there are no cash payments," said Natalia Suvorova, an employee of RSK.

She holds the position of a logistician in this company and was involved in coordinating construction equipment in Bashkiria. The last time Suvorova was paid was in October. Management attributed the delay in its obligations to insufficient funding. Nevertheless, data from open sources proves the opposite: in recent years, RSK has received a large number of government orders worth billions of rubles. For example, the construction of the M-12 section with a length of 50 km near Achit cost the company almost 47 billion rubles from the budget.

Avtodor, which is the general contractor for the construction of the M-12, said that together with the customer, the state-owned Russian Highways company, they fully fulfilled all their financial obligations to the RAC. The unfinished projects of this company are located all over the country — from the center of Russia to the Far East, and their employees would like to know where the money went.

Evgeny Belikov, an employee of RSK, said that Avtodor had paid for everything under the contract, but there were not enough funds for the company's salaries due to the rise in price of materials. Nevertheless, the contractor finds the money to move and rent new premises. Thus, the current RSK office is located in the Kitay-Gorod district in the historical center of Moscow and occupies several floors. Employees there have not met the director for a long time, and they will learn about the development of events related to the company from the news releases.

It is important that a criminal case has been opened against Boris Sakun, the former director of the RSK, for fraud on an especially large scale. The manager has been put on the federal and international wanted list, and the company's projects have been transferred to other contractors. The government believes that the deadline for the completion of the M-12 will have to be shifted to the right by six months.