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- Probation: those accused of disrupting a military construction site sentenced to five years in prison
Probation: those accused of disrupting a military construction site sentenced to five years in prison
On December 27, the Simonovsky District Court of Moscow passed a verdict in a case of fraud in the construction of a testing complex for IL-76 aircraft. Four defendants were found guilty of having received about 200 million rubles, but failed to fulfill the contract. All of them were sentenced to terms of four to five years in prison. One of the defendants did not show up in court and will be put on the wanted list in the near future. Another defendant, according to Izvestia's source, has long been on an international wanted list and is believed to have fled to London.
Sentence to Rustim executives
On December 27, the Simonovsky District Court of Moscow sentenced employees and managers of Rustim in the case of embezzlement of 196 million rubles in the construction of a test facility for IL-76MD-90A aircraft at the Ulyanovsk aircraft plant. The facility, designed to test the airtightness of the newest modifications of military transport aircraft, was not built despite the state contract concluded with the general contractor.
Rustim co-owner Sergei Plekhanov, company CEO Nikolai Tandura, his business partner Azamat Taepov and the head of the company's financial department Denis Vasin were sentenced to four to five years in a general regime colony. Vasin has already served his sentence in a pre-trial detention center, while Taepov, who was ordered by the court to prohibit certain actions as a preventive measure, did not show up for the verdict and will be put on a wanted list. Tandura and Plekhanov were under house arrest and were taken into custody in the courtroom.
The prosecutor's office asked to sentence the defendants to 6.5 to 9.5 years in prison, but the court probably took into account that the key beneficiary of the scheme - businessman Viktor Pozdnyakov - hid from the investigation in London, a source familiar with the case explained to Izvestia. In 2023, Pozdnyakov was arrested in absentia and put on an international wanted list.
According to the investigation, in 2015, the management of the construction company Rustim concluded a general contracting agreement with CJSC Aviastar-SP - the Ulyanovsk plant of the company Ilyushin, part of the United Aircraft Corporation. In April and November 2016, the company received advance payments of 147.7 million and 100 million rubles. However, the contractors did not fulfill their obligations in full, and a significant part of the money was "stolen and disposed of at their own discretion," the prosecution insists.
In the register of public procurement, the subject of the contract is the first stage of reconstruction and technical re-equipment of the production base of the enterprise. In 2018, Kommersant specified that it was about a test complex to check the tightness of the "sprinkling method" of the Il-76MD-90A, the main military transport aircraft of the Russian Air Force, and the Il-78M-90A (aerial refueler). The said procedure is a necessary part for factory testing, and the hangar was to be located next to the final assembly production. The publication's sources at the Ulyanovsk enterprise specified that "the selection of the company was carried out directly by UAC, control over the contract execution was also conducted by UAC". In its turn, UAC emphasized that the investigation was launched at the request of the corporation's former vice-president Alexander Tulyakov.
IL-76MD aircraft
As a result, a criminal case of fraud was initiated on December 19, 2018 by officers of the Main Investigation Department of the Moscow police. However, for a long time no one was charged in the case, until in December 2021 the case was transferred to the Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Then Plekhanov, Tandura, Vasin and Taepov were detained. The latter was detained in Bashkiria, where he was engaged in road construction projects. The court in Ufa chose a measure of restraint in the form of a ban on certain actions, the Izvestiya source said. Tandura began to cooperate with the investigation and found himself under house arrest, while Plekhanov and Vasin - in pre-trial detention.
The key defendant in the case is on the run
Pozdnyakov, whom the investigation considers a key figure in the case, according to an interlocutor familiar with the case, was not listed as either the owner or the general director of Rustim. However, Izvestia managed to find out that, among other things, Pozdnyakov was a co-owner of GK Goprodor LLC until 2017, where Taepov, who fled before the verdict, was listed as the general director.
In December 2024, the Moscow Arbitration Court completed the procedure for the realization of Pozdnyakov's property as part of the personal bankruptcy case. The main creditor was Sberbank. At the auction went his share of an apartment in Basmanny district, valued at 17 million rubles. Shares in a plot of land of 1 thousand square meters in the village of Yudino, Odintsovo district, Moscow region, and in a house of 264 square meters on the same plot were excluded from the bankruptcy estate. The court also ordered Pozdnyakov to surrender to the Rosgvardiya the Saiga-MK-03 rifled hunting rifle, Walther P22T gas pistol and Beretta AL 390 Silver Mallar smoothbore hunting rifle in his possession.
The court stated that Pozdnyakov did not assist the bankruptcy trustee in resolving his financial debts and also concealed that he had entered into an inheritance in 2018. On this basis, the court did not release Pozdnyakov "from further execution of creditors' claims, including creditors' claims not claimed in the realization of the property."
Taepov's bankruptcy procedure was completed even before his detention in the criminal case. In 2019, the Arbitration Court of Bashkortostan issued the corresponding decision.
The IL-76MD-90A produced in Ulyanovsk is a deep modernization of the IL-76MD aircraft. It is designed for cargo transportation, troop and equipment landing, as well as for special missions, including firefighting and humanitarian missions. Based on the IL-76MD-90A, the IL-78M-90A convertible refueling aircraft was created. The first demonstration flight was made in 2012. In 2013, Voyennoye Obozreniye wrote that the Ulyanovsk plant was officially contracted to supply 39 transport aircraft for the needs of the Russian Defense Ministry. The contract amounted to 140 billion rubles, making it the largest in the Russian aviation industry at the time.
