Paul Goble
Staunton, November 2 – The company the Russian defense ministry has been relying upon to develop military bases and other facilities in the Russian North now stands accused of stealing almost three billion rubles of government money, with RusAlyansStroy officials facing up to nine years in the camps (regnum.ru/news/society/2412247.html)
Anastasiya Stepanova, a Rex news agency commentator, provides details about both the case, which has been in the courts since October 2017 but only last week led to convictions, and the company, which was created by powerful Moscow businessmen in 2010 but now, despite its theft of so much government money, is bankrupt (iarex.ru/articles/78209.html).
Both the theft and the bankruptcy of one of the companies most prominently involved in building Russian military facilities along the Arctic coast will inevitably slow progress on those critical sites. But more may be ahead because so many prominent people were involved and the case threatens to have “a curious follow on,” Stepanova says.
She suggests that the RusAlyansStroi sentences may be followed by others and thus what might have been a problem with only a single company involved in the North may spread to far more. If that proves to be the case, then Kremlin claims about progress about support facilities for the Northern Sea Route and military bases there must be viewed more skeptically.
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