| Submit your comments on this article |
| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| 'Some kind of Moshe Izrailevich.' What claims could Putin be talking about against Chubais? |
| 2023-09-13 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Oleg Krivoshapov [REGNUM] A “big financial hole” formed in the state corporation Rusnano, which was led by Anatoly Chubais, who left Russia . President Vladimir Putin pointed this out on September 12 , speaking at the plenary session of the Eastern Economic Forum. The head of state suggested that this fact was the reason why the former top manager “fled” outside the country. “They showed me some kind of photograph from the Internet, where he is no longer Anatoly Borisovich Chubais, but some Moshe Izrailevich, lives there somewhere... Why is he doing this, I don’t understand,” the president noted . The President expressed bewilderment at this and suggested that this behavior was connected precisely with the “hole” in Rusnano, which was headed by Chubais for many years. “I won’t give numbers now—big numbers,” Putin noted. However, there are no criminal cases or any prosecutions against the former head of the unprofitable state corporation, the Russian President clarified. But the former head of Rusnano, as Putin concluded, fearing precisely this, went “illegal” in Israel. In March last year, Chubais, we recall, left the post of special representative of the Russian President for sustainable development and went to Turkey, after which, according to some sources, he was in Italy, and subsequently in Israel. The former head of Rusnano refused to comment on the words of Russian President Vladimir Putin about his activities in the state corporation. CLAIMS HAVE BEEN BUILDING UP FOR A LONG TIME Questions about the structure arose repeatedly. When it was created in 2007 (initially it was called the Russian Nanotechnology Corporation, after 2011 - Rusnano JSC), it received government guarantees for loans amounting to up to 182 billion rubles. Another 130 billion was invested in its capital. It was assumed that state support would cease completely in 2016, but at the beginning of 2015, the head of Rusnano, Chubais, turned to the government with a request for additional support. In December of the same 2015, the Accounts Chamber began an audit of Rusnano, which, since its inception in 2007, made a profit (8 billion rubles) only once - in 2014. Moreover, this profit was obtained solely due to the devaluation of the ruble. However, even then, experts compared the business of this structure “to a fund that invests money in very risky assets with a poorly predictable result in the medium term.” Subsequently, materials appeared in the public domain that could indicate dishonesty in the management of the state corporation. Such statements, in particular, were made by lawyer Ilya Remeslo . He stated that he compared Chubais’ statement at a corporate event (when the head of Rusnano said that “we have a lot of money” and promised double bonuses to employees based on the corporation’s successes) with the company’s documents and came to the conclusion: for 2015, “Rusnano "not only failed to achieve the target for the sale of nanoproducts worth 300 billion rubles, but also "brings losses of tens of billions from year to year." To hide losses in the company, according to the lawyer, they manipulated “ financial statements, declaring losses as “net profit.” After Chubais left Rusnano at the end of 2020, it turned out that the “flagship of scientific and technical thought” was in a pre-bankruptcy state, Komsomolskaya Pravda noted. In March 2022, the new head of the company, Sergei Kulikov, turned to the Prosecutor General’s Office with a request to check the activities of Rusnano JSC in the period from 2010 to 2020. A little later it became known that law enforcement officers suspect the ex-head of the corporation and his entourage of corruption. Witnesses are being interviewed, TASS reported on June 1, citing a source in law enforcement agencies. But the question arises why all these complaints arose against the management of the company, which seemed to spend a lot of money only due to the special specificity of its field of activity. NATURAL COSTS OR SYSTEM ERRORS? The “big hole” in the budget of Rusnano could well have arisen as a result of a deliberate act, lawyer Andrei Grivtsov , a former investigator for particularly important cases of the main investigative department of the Investigative Committee, does not rule out. But at the same time, the lawyer added, certain government projects are obviously unprofitable due to their specific nature. “Even if a certain state corporation gives the impression of being prosperous, it often happens that it is obviously subsidized,” Grivtsov told IA Regnum. “To say that losses arose as a result of someone else’s actions, you definitely need to understand this and analyze the evidence. I’m not sure that Rusnano was profitable in principle.” Of course, Rusnano could well have been unprofitable from the start. And this is normal, said Vladimir Shur , director of the Ural Center for Collective Use “Modern Nanotechnologies”, to IA Regnum . At least, he came to this conclusion while studying the practice of investing in nanotechnology in the United States. Schur notes: Washington in the early 2000s allocated a gigantic amount for the development of this industry - $3.7 billion. But relevant projects in the United States are still rarely completed without the participation of private capital. “Innovation means that there are people who are willing to risk their money and invest in something new, while the share of profitable projects is sometimes only 5%,” says the expert. In Russia, one cannot count on the interest of private investors in such a “totalizator”, the expert emphasized. At the same time, a state that seeks to develop the field of nanotechnology, in any case, needs an investment strategy designed not for 10–15 years, but for decades, Shur is sure. The head of the Center for Political Economic Research at the Institute of a New Society, Vasily Koltashov , on the contrary, believes that the losses incurred by Rusnano are not a consequence of the natural costs of working with risky new technologies. The fact is that Chubais’ team chose the wrong strategy from the very beginning. The problems of this state corporation lay precisely in the idea that technological advantages can be bought, Koltashov told IA Regnum . “That is why a gap arose between high expenses and the very dubious, obscure results of the work of the Rusnano management,” the expert pointed out. “ A fundamentally wrong concept underlay the work of the top management of this company; they focused on venture investments in enterprises.” Venture investments, let us remind you, are deliberately risky investments in a new business, a new project, and the like. Initially, it is assumed that investments can either pay off many times over or turn out to be risky and lead to bankruptcy. Chubais supported this strategy as an ideological neoliberal, Koltashov added. Thus, the former head of Rusnano, in his position, could not only promote certain projects, the return on which was not initially guaranteed, but also, using the full trust of the state, manage investments in Rusnano, guided solely by personal stereotypes and personal interests. But the question remains: if the claims were substantiated, why did they not lead to far-reaching legal consequences? And why are now inspections of Rusnano’s work in previous years being carried out again, although the previous ones did not lead to anything? WHY DIDN’T THEY TAKE ON CHUBAIS RIGHT AWAY? Inspections can be carried out for completely different reasons, says Pavel Zaitsev, a member of the presidium of the National Anti-Corruption Committee, a former senior investigator for particularly important cases . “ Previously, checks may have been carried out on certain cases, but now on completely different ones ,” said the expert from IA Regnum . “And if previously they ended in vain, without bringing the perpetrators to justice, now facts of illegal actions may well be established ” As for the former head of Rusnano, he, realizing that these checks could end negatively for him, may be preparing ways to retreat. The question is how legal his actions are,” Zaitsev noted. Several competent authorities may participate in assessing the legality of the actions of the former management of Rusnano - including the above-mentioned Prosecutor General’s Office, the Investigative Committee and the Accounts Chamber, Oleg Sukharev, chief researcher at the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, noted in an interview with Regnum. “We need primary information about non-budgetary, misuse of funds, ” the interlocutor pointed out. — For example, it was planned to create some kind of Russian tablet, iPhone or processor, billions of rubles were invested, but there was no development. There should be personal responsibility for this - maybe also criminal charges, if one is identified.” At the same time, Sukharev does not rule out the need to investigate the actions of the former head of the state corporation Rusnano, Anatoly Chubais, as a possible foreign agent. “I will emphasize the word “possible” because it has not yet been recognized as such,” the expert clarifies. Related: Anatoly Chubais: 2022-03-24 From Ukrainian Perspective: Russian invasion of Ukraine, March 24th, 2022 Anatoly Chubais: 2022-03-24 Putin Adviser Chubais Quits Over Ukraine War, Leaves Russia Anatoly Chubais: 2017-10-24 Podesta’s ‘Green Company’ Forced to Close Because Hillary Lost the Election |
| Posted by:badanov |