Ex-head of « plastic Lodzhik » and the top manager of Rusnano were arrested in absentia

As it became known to Kommersant, the Meshchansky district court of the capital arrested in absentia in absentia, the former Rusnano top manager Yuri Udaltsov and the head of the subsidiary of the Plastic Lodzhik Corporation Nikolai Techinin previously declared on the international wanted list. Both of them are accused of particularly large fraud when creating a “tablet of Chubais” – a flexible gadget for Russian schoolchildren, which is not launched into a series. Under the investigation and courts are a number of other former senior subordinates of Mr. Chubais who went abroad. The expired statute of limitations do not interfere with the summoners from the defendants of the amount of hundreds of millions of rubles in the expense of the damage caused.

The petitions of investigators of the Investigative Department (SD) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia on the absentee arrest of the Lord Udaltsov and Tychinin on Wednesday, June 4, was considered and satisfied by the judge of the Meshchansky district court of Moscow Irina Gorbulina. She agreed with the investigation that had already become standard arguments that, being at large, the defendants could hide from the participants in the investigation, put pressure on witnesses, destroy material evidence, etc.

In fact, the arrest procedure was a formality, since a few months ago the Ministry of Internal Affairs put on the international wanted list of the ex-deputy chairman of the Rusnano Board Yuri Udaltsov and the former general director of the Plastic Lodzhik company Nikolai Techinin for the theft or embezzlement of entrusted funds on an especially large amount (part 4 of article 160 of the Criminal Code). Meanwhile, now they were arrested in absentia in the framework of the simultaneously begun investigation of fraud on an especially large scale (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code).

By and large, absenteeism in absentia was necessary, but only by the technical moment to confirm the search for defendants through international channels.

Recall that back in 2022, Anatoly Chubais, the new head of Rusnano, Sergey Kulikov, appealed to the Prosecutor General’s Office with a request to check the work of the corporation from 2010 to 2020. In 2024, the corporation initiated bankruptcy « Plastic Lodzhik ». This “daughter” of the state corporation was supposed to launch into production presented back in 2011 by the highest leadership of the country’s “Flexible tablet” for schoolchildren Plastic Logic100, which also received the unofficial name “Chubais Planet”. However, the project was never implemented, but turned into a grand failure – “capable of replacing the whole set of textbooks on all disciplines” The gadget did not go into the series, and the plant for its production in Zelenograd never appeared.

As Kommersant reported, in August last year the same bourgeois court at the request of the Ministry of Internal Affairs SD arrested another project manager to create a Plastic Logic100 Boris Galkin. In the winter of this year, there was a criminal case of abuse of authority that entailed grave consequences (part 3 of article 285 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Within its framework, the former Executive Director of Rusnano Boris Podolsky was detained, his deputy – managing director of finance Arthur Balstyan and director for accounting, taxation and reporting methodology Marina Kasenkova.

According to investigators, in 2017 in Rusnano they distorted the data in financial consumption and thereby mislead the shareholder – the state.

All of them were suspected of inexpensive consumption of 45 billion rubles. As Kommersant reported, the investigation believed, among other things, that some of these funds were allocated to create a “flexible tablet” for schoolchildren. At the same time, the FSB previously noted that 13 billion rubles. Of these, allegedly also stolen. In the Rusnano itself, the damage from the activities of the previous top management of the company was estimated at different amounts, among which the figure of more than 200 billion rubles was also called. However, these amounts are periodically specified and adjusted.

According to Kommersant, in April of this year, the Moscow Arbitration Court in the RUSNANO claim arrested the ex-head of the corporation Anatoly Chubais and another seven defendants. The total recovery amounted to 5.6 billion rubles. Among the defendants were also indicated Boris Podolsky, Yuri Udaltsov, German Pikhoy, Nikolai Pianinin, Oleg Kiselev, Dmitry Pimkin and Vladimir Avetisyan. The court ruling noted that some of them are abroad and are not interested in maintaining property in Russia. The lawsuit of Rusnano partially satisfied the court, and later rejected the request of Mr. Chubais, who asked for the removal of security arrest from Russian assets.

It is worth noting that the first claims of the investigating authorities against the officials of Rusnano appeared back in September 2013, when the Investigative Committee opened a criminal case of abuse of authority (Article 285 of the Criminal Code).

The only suspect was the financial director of the Civil Code Svyatoslav Ponurov then. And two months later, the ex-Vice-Prime Minister of the government Yakov Urinson and Yuri Udaltsov, but already as part of a waste case, were questioned as suspects. Later, another thing was opened against the first deputy head of Rusnano Leonid Melamed and the former managing director of investment Andrei Gorkov. The materials of most cases said that the funds of the corporation were stolen under the guise of providing consulting services.

In the case of Mr. Gorkov, the Gagarinsky District Court of Moscow stopped criminal prosecution behind the expiration of the statute of limitations. The lawsuit claimed by the Corporation was considered as part of the civil proceedings of the Zyuzinsky court of the capital in February this year and was partially satisfied with a giant amount of 607 million rubles. The defendant’s complaint about the court decision has not yet been considered.

Sergey Sergeev