Serdyukov's revelations

On Thursday, the key and most famous defense witness, former Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, spoke at the trial in the Oboronservis case. He spoke about the circumstances of his acquaintance with the main accused, Evgenia Vasilyeva, and also described her business qualities.

Until the very last moment it was unknown whether Serdyukov would come to court. On Wednesday evening, Serdyukov’s lawyers stated that they did not know about their client’s plans. Initially, the interrogation was scheduled for December 23, but then the court hearing was postponed due to the illness of one of the accused. The second time the interrogation was supposed to take place on January 12, but, as it turned out, the minister never received a summons for this date.

In court, Anatoly Serdyukov, as reported by RBC , briefly described the system of subordination in the Ministry of Defense: he himself reported directly to the president, and all other employees and military personnel reported to the minister.

Serdyukov talked about how he met Evgenia Vasilyeva and decided to hire her as head of the property relations department of the military department. In 2009, he held the next working meeting, at which she made a report as an adviser to the deputy head of the presidential administration, Alexander Beglov. The minister appreciated the performance and decided to appoint her as head of the department. Serdyukov assured the court that Vasilyeva was hired due to her professional qualities. “We needed a person with good organizational skills,” Serdyukov said and added that Vasilyeva also had good recommendations.

Serdyukov was somewhat confused when the prosecutor asked him about Vasilyeva’s suitability for her position. “I trusted the documents. Honors diploma from St. Petersburg University... I thought I qualified,” the ex-minister eventually answered.

At that time, the Ministry of Defense, according to Serdyukov, was “not in the best condition”: there were large debts, and subordinate enterprises were not busy with work. Therefore, it was decided to privatize the companies owned by the department, and then sell some objects - this made it possible to at least somehow reduce debts. In addition, it was decided to reduce the personnel of the armed forces from three to one million by 2016.

Serdyukov assured that he was selling only unnecessary property. As an example, the former minister cited some repair companies that were in a pre-bankruptcy state. Before the sale, the companies were incorporated, then went through a rehabilitation procedure, and only then were put up for auction. At the same time, the market value of objects often differed from the qualified assessment. Serdyukov explained that often the property could not be sold without a 40-50% discount.

The prosecutor asked Serdyukov to tell how the company TsPP Expert, which the investigation considers controlled by Vasilyeva, became an agent for the sale of property of the Ministry of Defense. Serdyukov explained that initially only one company was involved in sales, but then it could no longer cope with the volume of work. Therefore, Serdyukov ordered to find a second company.

Serdyukov admitted that it was Vasilyeva who recommended the TsPP Expert company. The minister decided to cooperate with the company after a personal conversation with its director and owner Ekaterina Smetanova. “I asked her what education she had, what work experience she had. It seemed to me that the person had the necessary data,” said Serdyukov. The “expert” was eventually appointed as an agent of the Ministry of Defense by Serdyukov’s personal directive.

At the same time, he could not remember what the special differences of the TsPP Expert company were and what its staff was. Also, Serdyukov could not comment in any way on the prosecutor’s words that the TsPP Expert company had relations with the Vita Project company, which the prosecution also considers controlled by Vasilyeva. According to investigators, it was to the accounts of this company that Expert’s agent fees were received, and the company itself acted as the buyer of the 31st State Design Institute for Special Construction and other property of the Ministry of Defense.

After the prosecutor, the right to question the witness passed to the accused. First of all, Evgenia Vasilyeva asked Anatoly Serdyukov if she had deceived him. “No,” the former minister answered clearly. The prosecution, we recall, believes that Vasilyeva deceived Serdyukov and thus was able to achieve the conclusion of an agency agreement with the Expert company by the Ministry of Defense.

In response to Vasilyeva’s request to comment on the information that she stole three billion rubles from the Ministry of Defense, the former minister, as RAPSI writes , was surprised. “I believe there was no damage. Moreover, the damage would have been many times greater if the work had not been carried out. The work was done correctly and on time. We could have started earlier, but what's done is done. There was no damage to either the state or the Ministry of Defense,” Serdyukov said.

The interrogation of the former defense minister in court lasted more than four hours. After him there were no important witnesses left. Now Evgenia Vasilyeva, as well as four other defendants accused of fraud with the aim of appropriating property from the Ministry of Defense, can only wait for the verdict. However, it is still unknown when exactly it will be issued.

Let us remember that Anatoly Serdyukov was Minister of Defense from 2007 to 2012. In November 2012, almost immediately after his resignation, he became involved in the Oboronservis case; he was accused of negligence, as a result of which the Ministry of Defense suffered significant damage. At the end of 2013, he was charged, but the investigation was terminated; Serdyukov fell under an amnesty, which the State Duma announced in honor of the 20th anniversary of the Constitution.

The main defendant in the case, Evgenia Vasilyeva, headed the property relations department of the Ministry of Defense under Serdyukov; she is accused of 12 counts of criminal activity, including the illegal sale of military property, and has been under house arrest since November 2012. According to investigators, Vasilyeva misled Serdyukov and persuaded him to enter into an agreement for the provision of agency services with the company TsPP Expert, which belongs to her friend Ekaterina Smetanova. Evgenia Vasilyeva faces up to 12 years in prison.