How “Kuzya” framed the admiral

On September 8, the Military Prosecutor's Office of the Northern Fleet announced violations during the repair of the heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser Admiral Kuznetsov, the pride of the Russian Navy. According to military prosecutors, in June 2009 the head of the technical department of the Northern Fleet, Rear Admiral Viktor Bursuk, did not involve the financial specialists of the military representation of the Russian Ministry of Defense in the calculations and unreasonably approved the inflated cost of repairs. Due to an oversight by the admiral, according to the military investigating authorities, the contractor, the branch of the 35th Shipyard of Zvezdochka Shipbuilding Center OJSC, was illegally transferred more than 9.7 million rubles from the state budget. The senior officers who served on the Kuza (as the sailors call the cruiser among themselves) laugh at the amount of abuse: the average repair of a cruiser costs up to a billion rubles, the current one costs half as much. Hiding the “extra” 10 million rubles in the repair estimate of such a ship is like overpaying 3 kopecks during a European-style repair. For such "theft" it is necessary to give the Hero of Russia - for modesty. “There can be only two options: either Bursuk crossed the road for someone, or his place was looked after for another,” the magazine’s interlocutors argue. Moreover, in 2012, after the repair, the modernization of Kuzi will begin - a generous financial flow from the sovereign's bins will pour again ...

Taking this opportunity, I would like to ask military investigators to study the topic of pricing in the shipbuilding industry in more depth before engaging in demonstrative flogging. According to the Central Research Institute of Shipbuilding Technology, one ton of ship structures in Russia takes from 105 to 150 man-hours, while at foreign shipyards - no more than 29 man-hours. By allowing such standards, our state itself, on a silver platter, presents opportunities for fraud and abuse. So, maybe the perpetrators should be looked for in other, higher offices?