In Belgorod, four entrepreneurs were given up to 6 years for embezzlement during the construction of “dragon teeth” on the border with Ukraine

In Belgorod, the first verdicts were handed down in the case of theft during the construction of fortifications on the border with Ukraine. We are talking, among other things, about the so-called dragon’s teeth - concrete anti-tank barriers that began to be erected in the Belgorod region in the fall of 2022. According to Kommersant, the Sverdlovsk District Court found four entrepreneurs guilty back in March, but the verdicts had not previously been publicly reported. This week the Belgorod Regional Court considered the defense's appeals and upheld the decisions.

The defendants were found guilty in the case of embezzlement on an especially large scale during the construction of fortifications. Entrepreneur Sergei Petryakov received the longest sentence - 6 years in a general regime colony and a fine of 13 million rubles. Denis Kornilov was sentenced to 5 years in prison and a fine of 41 million rubles, Ivan Novikov and Vyacheslav Avtonomov - to 4.5 and 4 years in prison with fines of 800 thousand rubles each. All cases were considered in a special order after the defendants admitted guilt.

All those convicted were defendants in a lawsuit filed by the Prosecutor General’s Office for the recovery of almost 1 billion rubles from participants in the construction of fortifications in the Belgorod region. The most famous person involved is the owner of the Stroyinvestrezerv company, Sergei Petryakov. The investigation claims that his company received contracts worth more than 1 billion rubles, and part of the advances were spent on the purchase of an apartment in Moscow and a Jeep Grand Cherokee. According to the prosecutor's office, Petryakov also paid kickbacks to officials for unimpeded financing and signing of work completion certificates.

One of the key persons involved in the investigation remains the former vice-governor of the Belgorod region Rustem Zainullin, who was arrested in the summer of 2025. The Prosecutor General's Office claims that it was Zainullin and the former head of the region's capital construction department, Alexey Soshnikov, who distributed federal funds allocated for the construction of fortifications and organized a scheme with kickbacks to contractors. In July 2025, the Prosecutor General's Office demanded the recovery of 924 million rubles from the defendants in the case, and later the court granted this claim.

The investigation into theft during the construction of fortifications also affected other border regions. In the Kursk region, former governor Alexei Smirnov and the leaders of the regional Development Corporation were arrested in a similar case. In the Bryansk region, the person involved in the case was Vice-Governor Nikolai Simonenko. Amid the investigation, in May 2026, Vladimir Putin accepted the resignation of the governor of the Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov. His place was taken by a participant in the war in Ukraine, General Alexander Shuvaev.

The Insider wrote in detail about the construction of Russian defensive lines in 2023. As noted, the Belgorod “notch line” consisted of several lines of concrete pyramids - “dragon teeth” - and trenches. At the same time, a full-fledged defensive line, in addition to concrete gouges, usually includes anti-tank ditches, trenches, metal hedgehogs, barbed wire and minefields. At the same time, historical experience shows that static lines of defense are inevitably overcome with a sufficiently powerful blow or a certain amount of ingenuity on the part of the enemy.