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The CEO of Vojentorg has been detained in Russia on suspicion of particularly large-scale embezzlement during the execution of a contract for the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Russia’s Interior Ministry reported the incident on Thursday, adding videos of the arrests and other police actions to a press release on its website, Radio Sloboda (RFE/RL) reported.
The detainees were not named in the press release. However, RFE/RL reported that as of 2012, Vojentorg’s CEO was Vladimir Pavlov.
Several company employees were detained in Moscow, North Ossetia, the Stavropol region and the Pskov region as possible accomplices. In the case of particularly large-scale fraud, they face up to ten years in prison.
Several people were detained
According to investigators, in the period 2019-22, the suspects purchased products through selected organizations (the so-called military health kits) – and then sold them to the Ministry of Defense through state contracts for about 625 million rubles (6,739 thousand euros). Investigators believe that this amount was overestimated by 400 million rubles (4 million euros).
According to RFE/RL, the RBK news website wrote that the Vojentorg company was mentioned in the corruption case of former Russian Deputy Defense Minister Dmitry Bulgakov, and the company remains the sole supplier of clothing and equipment for the Russian army. In late July, it was reported that he was arrested for providing high-priced and low-quality food to the army.
It was also reported on Thursday that Sergei Suchov, the former head of the construction department of a branch of a military construction company in the Central Military District, had also been detained. In late July, military investigators opened a particularly large case against him.
The activities of military construction companies fall under the purview of former Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov, who was detained in April. He is accused of accepting more than 1 billion rubles (more than 10 million euros) in bribes, which he allegedly received from subcontractors. Ivanov has not pleaded guilty. In addition to Ivanov, several other senior Defense Ministry officials or people with links to the military have been detained in recent months.
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