On the eve of elections in Altai, security forces smash the local branch of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. Two deputies, including the speaker of the Legislative Assembly, were under suspicion of particularly large-scale fraud.

On the morning of February 5, the Investigative Committee and the FSB in the Altai Territory launched a large-scale special operation against local communists. As State Duma deputy from the Altai Territory Maria Prusakova (fraction of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation) reported, the security forces visited several prominent party members: vice-speaker of the Altai Regional Legislative Assembly (AKZS) Yuri Kropotin, regional parliament deputy Andrei Chernobay from Rubtsovsk, Prusakova’s deputy Daria Zulina and several other people related to the party. Two deputies - Kropotkin and Chernobay - were eventually detained. According to pro-government telegram channels, they are suspected of fraud on an especially large scale. According to investigators, several years ago communist deputies fictitiously placed their supporters in the positions of assistant deputies, and embezzled the money. “New Europe” looked into what could have caused a major political scandal in the Altai Territory, as well as what the Communists themselves consider to be the reason for the hunt for their fellow party members.

Fifteen thousand a day

At the entrance of one of the Rubtsovsky five-story buildings, people in masks crowded together. They persistently knock on one of the apartments, the door is opened by a frail student, clearly not prepared to receive guests. A man in a mask, wearing a jacket with the yellow letters FSB on the back, without further ado, leads the young man deeper into the apartment: now everything will be explained to him. The operator who came to conduct the search records the home of the alleged swindler: there is a narrow corridor in front of the kitchen, shabby walls, and an anarchist symbol on the restroom door. After all the procedures, the young man takes out his belongings from under the folding bed and goes to the local branch of the Investigative Committee.

The detained 27-year-old Andrei Chernobai became a member of the regional parliament almost by accident. In December 2021, after the elections, which turned out to be incredibly successful for local communists, Vladimir Belkin, one of the elected deputies, unexpectedly died. According to parliamentary regulations, his mandate passed to the person next on the list. It turned out to be Andrei Chernobay, a student at the Rubtsovsky Industrial Institute.

In his status as a people's representative, Chernobay took an active interest in student affairs , ecology , and the state of housing and communal services in Rubtsovsk. According to investigators, the deputy formally recruited an assistant from among party supporters to this work.

From the point of view of the law, there is nothing criminal in this; moreover, each deputy receives money from the regional parliament for the work of assistants (usually one).

However, the security forces are confident that Chernobay fictitiously gave his fellow party member a job as an assistant and allegedly took his salary for himself. At the same time, it is not specified what the agreement was on the terms of cooperation between Chernobay and his assistant: whether he was his victim or an accomplice in the alleged crime. However, as investigators believe, by receiving “payments for an assistant,” Chernobay could have stolen 2.4 million rubles from the budget over the course of several years.

It is generally quite difficult to prove that such relationships are fictitious, because the assistant reports on the work done personally to the deputy. As well as proving that government money was spent for its intended purpose. The security forces had questions about this mechanism before: back in 2019, the Altai prosecutor’s office conducted an inspection at the AKZS and identified “violations of labor legislation when organizing the recording and control by deputies of the working hours of assistants.” But then there was no talk of criminal prosecution of deputies.

Another detained deputy of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation is vice-speaker of the AKZS Yuri Kropotin. He was also elected to parliament in 2021 and, according to investigators, four years ago he fictitiously “employed an acquaintance as an assistant” and thus “heated up the state” by more than two million rubles, pro-government telegram channels write . The scale of the “heating” looks like this: for four years, Kropotin and his assistant “stole” one and a half thousand rubles a day from the budget.

But why did the supervisory authorities, who knew about a possible corruption scheme within the walls of the legislative assembly many years ago, remain inactive all this time?

Dangerous success

The Communist Party of the Russian Federation denies fictitious relations between deputies and assistants. A source close to the party's regional committee told us that all aides performed their assigned functions and there was no corruption scheme.

At the same time, the interlocutor does not understand the very logic of investigative actions motivated in this way - after all, in addition to the deputies allegedly involved in fraud, law enforcement officers also visited a number of other party members. For example, the editor-in-chief of the party newspaper Daria Zulina, who has nothing to do with the work of deputies at all. Party supporters believe that there is a campaign against the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in the region in order to weaken the party’s position before the upcoming elections to the local parliament, which will take place in September this year.

“The authorities knew that they would not find golden toilets [from the deputies and their assistants]. The task was not to find toilets, but simply to loudly accuse the communists and tarnish their reputation. Elections are coming soon, the situation in the country is heating up,”

- writes the telegram channel “Altai Extremes”, close to the regional committee.

The local branch of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation has one of the largest factions in the regional parliament. In 2021, the communists, with the support of Smart Voting, managed to achieve unprecedented results in the elections: they received 24% of the votes, managed to win in 15 single-mandate constituencies; According to the results of the same vote, the leader of local communists, Maria Prusakova, entered the State Duma.

And almost immediately 24 regional deputies began to create problems for United Russia (UR) and the regional administration.

Deputies of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation either blocked the adoption of the budget or pointedly ignored the governor’s report. United Russia was surprised to discover that they had lost their dominant position in the AKZS, so they even had to look for situational coalitions with the LDPR and A Just Russia. However, soon strange metamorphoses began to occur with the Altai branch of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. In just one year, the Reds lost five deputies. In 2023, deputies Nadezhda Dryupina and Elena Khrustaleva were expelled from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation for supporting the budget and became independent parliamentarians, and communist deputy Vladimir Gromov unexpectedly decided to volunteer for the SVO. Returning from the war, he said: “We must unite, be together, next to the president. And if our president decided to come to victory, to destroy all neo-Nazism, which, unfortunately, our great-grandfathers and grandfathers did not finish off during the Great Patriotic War, then we must do this and come to victory. Therefore, I am with the United Russia party, I will do everything possible that depends on me.”

Several more people later left the faction, citing internal differences. Their fellow party members perceived this as a betrayal. “The authorities are intimidating someone, trying to lure someone with money and positions,” Anton Artsibashev, deputy leader of the Communist Party faction, commented on the situation. Those who “didn’t give in” were soon decided to be killed, according to party supporters.

In September 2025, a scandal broke out around 25-year-old deputy Alexander Volobuev, whom fellow parliamentarians accused of “LGBT propaganda” after intimate photographs began to appear on Telegram channels. In them, a man similar to Volobuev hugs another young man. The deputy himself stated that the photographs were faked. Most of all, the situation outraged the “Socialist Revolutionary” deputy Evgenia Borovikova, who called on Volobuev to resign his mandate and leave the country. As a result, Volobuev received a summons and went to serve in the army (although earlier, writes the local news agency Bankfax, he evaded conscription and was even fined).

A little later, in November 2025, a criminal case was opened against Communist Party member Lyudmila Klyushnikova and her assistant Svetlana Kerber. According to investigators,

Klyushnikova allegedly “employed” her friend as an assistant, thus embezzling more than three million rubles.

On November 21, the communist, and then her assistant, were sent to a pre-trial detention center. Then Zyuganov stood up for them and demanded that the Presidential Administration intervene.

“Under a far-fetched pretext, in my opinion, deputy Lyudmila Klyushnikova and her assistant Svetlana Kerber were arrested. Klyushnikova is a mother of three children. Her son is a member of the SVO,” Zyuganov said in the State Duma.

On New Year's Eve, Klyushnikova and Kerber were finally released from the pre-trial detention center. Supporters of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in the region perceived this as a victory, but a threat loomed over the entire organization and its leader Maria Prusakova, who will again be fighting for a seat in the State Duma this year. Bankfax, citing its sources , writes that the authorities are interested in her “financial flows” and suspect that ten years ago the politician could have organized a corruption scheme.

According to the publication, deputies who took paid positions in the regional parliament were allegedly supposed to give Prusakova one and a half million rubles. However, the law enforcement officers have not yet bothered Prusakova.

Meanwhile, the repressive mechanism used against the Communist Party of the Russian Federation has already been used by law enforcement officers on their worst enemies. The first in this row was the odious member of the regional parliament Sergei Matasov from the Communists of Russia. In the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the Communists of Russia are considered a spoiler party and are jokingly called “non-traditional communists.” The leader of the Altai “comros” Matasov was arrested in March last year on suspicion of fraud. During the investigation, Matasov admitted that he fictitiously “employed” his relatives, and spent the money received to pay for their failed work at the Barnaul “Stalin Center”.

On February 6, the day after investigative actions against a number of “traditional communists,” Matasov was sentenced to 4 years probation and a fine of 300 thousand rubles. Against this background, local pro-political telegram channels began to press : representatives of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation should not “turn a criminal case into a political farce,” but rather take an example from Matasov and repent.

However, there were no public confessions from the detainees. Over the weekend, both defendants in the case were released home. Deputy Kropotin was released with a “ban on certain actions,” and the Chernobay court hearing was completely canceled. It is not reported what the status of the politician is in the case.