The court sentenced ex-employees of the Patriot center to nine years in a bribery case.

The court sentenced Andrei Puchkov, the former chief accountant of the Patriot Convention and Exhibition Center, and Ivan Trifonoglo, the former head of the procurement department of the same institution, to nine years in prison for a bribe totaling more than 27.5 million rubles. This was announced on March 4 by the Investigative Committee (IC) of Russia.

In addition to imprisonment, the defendants were fined 27 million rubles and banned from engaging in certain activities for 10 years.

"The evidence gathered by the military investigative authorities has been recognized by the court as sufficient to convict Andrei Puchkov and Ivan Trifonoglo. Depending on the role of each, they were found guilty of taking a particularly large bribe in the performance of government contracts (Part 6 of Article 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation)," the message on the UK Telegram channel says.

As the investigation and the court established, Puchkov and Trifonoglo controlled the execution of multimillion-dollar state contracts for the maintenance of Patriot concluded with IP Kuvaeva. In 2021-2024, the defendants received a bribe from the contractor for patronage during the performance of work.

"In order to secure a verdict in terms of fines, civil action and property penalties, military investigators have seized the property of the accused," the Investigative Committee said.

Earlier, on February 5, the Second Western District Military Court until June 1 extended the arrest of former Deputy Defense Minister Pavel Popov, who is accused of fraud on a particularly large scale. According to investigators, in 2021-2024, in charge of the development of the Patriot Park, Popov stole the funds allocated for this purpose. The former deputy defense minister also participated in the forced involvement of heads of commercial organizations who had signed a contract with the park, without paying them.