The former director of a ship repair yard is suspected of embezzling 6 million rubles

Yesterday it became known that a criminal case had been opened against Yuri Shulgan, the former director of the Far Eastern Plant Zvezda OJSC, an enterprise specializing in the repair of nuclear submarines (NPS). According to investigators, Mr. Shulgan embezzled about 6 million rubles allocated by Japan for the dismantling of Russian nuclear submarines. The ex-head of the enterprise insists on his innocence, and the chairman of the trade union committee of the Far Eastern Plant (DVZ) "Zvezda" Olga Skripko believes that the criminal case against Yuri Shulgan was initiated by those who do not want to allow him to return to management of the plant.

Yesterday, the Main Directorate (GU) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation for the Far Eastern Federal District (FEFD) announced the disclosure of a financial scam in the implementation of the Russian-Japanese agreement on the dismantling of nuclear submarines at one of the ship repair enterprises in Primorye. The department's press release does not indicate the name of the suspect or the name of the enterprise, but it is obvious that we are talking about the Zvezda plant, located in the city of Bolshoi Kamen, and its former director Yuri Shulgan.

According to investigators, the former director of the plant embezzled about 6 million rubles, which should be used for the dismantling of nuclear submarines. “In 2007, the plant concluded an extremely profitable contract for the dismantlement of Russian Victor-3 class nuclear submarines (Project 671 RTM.—Kommersant), according to which the total cost of the work amounted to more than 780 million rubles. It is noteworthy that the order was financed by Japan.” , said the head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation for the Far Eastern Federal District, Felix Vasilkov. However, Yuri Shulgan “decided to use part of this money for personal interests,” the investigation believes. “Taking advantage of his official position, he entered into an agreement with one of the Primorye LLCs, according to which the company undertook to compile for the enterprise a list of equipment and parts containing precious metals and included in the equipment of dismantled submarines. For this, the commercial organization was entitled to about 6 million rubles. The catch was: the fact that this company existed only on paper, and the work that it undertook to do for the plant had long been completed by one of the research institutes (and paid for, accordingly),” says the message of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation for the Far Eastern Federal District. Nevertheless, the director of the Zvezda plant “signed the acceptance certificate of the completed work and transferred the funds to the account of the phantom enterprise.” Then, according to Major General Vasilkov, the money was “cashed out by persons not yet identified.” A criminal case was initiated under Part 4 of Art. 160 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (misappropriation or embezzlement committed on an especially large scale). In relation to 58-year-old Yuri Shulgan, who headed the Zvezda plant from the end of 2001 to January 2008, a preventive measure was chosen in the form of a written undertaking not to leave the place.

The Zvezda shipyard is located in Bolshoi Kamen Bay, Ussuriysk Bay, and began operations in 1954. It is the only enterprise in the Far East for the medium repair of submarines and ships with nuclear power plants. The plant has repaired more than 600 warships and vessels of the Navy and border service, more than 50 nuclear and 13 diesel submarines, and dismantled 47 nuclear submarines (including five within the framework of the Russian-Japanese intergovernmental agreement concluded in November 2005). In addition, the plant produces small trawlers and refrigerators. 100% of Zvezda shares belong to the state, the company is part of the United Shipbuilding Corporation. Revenue in 2009 was 1.85 billion rubles, net profit was 6.37 million rubles. The main customer is the Russian Ministry of Defense (57% of total production). A third of the orders are paid for by Japan and Canada as part of the program for dismantling Russian nuclear submarines. The plant employs about 4 thousand people. Currently, the company is headed by Vladimir Averin (previously he headed OJSC North-Eastern Repair Center, Vilyuchinsk).

Yuri Shulgan could not be reached for comment yesterday. A source close to him said that the ex-director of the plant is taking the incident seriously and is not yet ready to communicate with the press. “He will insist on his innocence,” the source assured Kommersant. The chairman of the trade union committee of the Far Eastern Plant "Zvezda" Olga Skripko does not believe in Yuri Shulgan's guilt. “The criminal case arose after our trade union committee sent an appeal to Ishaev at the beginning of the year (Viktor Ishaev, presidential envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District - Kommersant), in which we said that the enterprise was in crisis, the new management intended to fire several hundred employees. We proposed returning Yuri Petrovich Shulgan to the post of director. He is a real professional and has experience in managing an enterprise during a crisis, but, obviously, Shulgan is very inconvenient for someone,” said Ms. Skripko. She suggested that Mr. Shulgan’s ill-wishers, who are trying to “neutralize the possibility of his return to the plant,” are behind the initiation of a criminal case.

This is already the second criminal case initiated against former managers of the Zvezda plant. Last December, Andrei Rassomakhin, who replaced Mr. Shulgan as head of the plant, was arrested. He is accused of fraud. According to investigators, the director was involved in fraud with fuel supplies under contracts concluded in 2009 with commercial structures. To heat the buildings of the enterprise in winter, 153 million rubles worth of fuel oil should be supplied, but in reality, in physical volume, investigators believe, 80 million rubles worth of fuel was supplied, the damage to the enterprise amounted to more than 70 million rubles. Mr. Rassomakhin also insists on his innocence.

Alexey Chernyshev, Vladivostok

Japanese money did not reach the submarine