Kommersant newspaper in Oleg Rubnikovich's article "Through kickbacks to the stars. The bribery case of the former Deputy General Director of the Roscosmos State Corporation for Armaments has been completed," she reported that, as it became known, the investigation of a high-profile criminal case has been completed, the main person involved in which is Oleg Frolov, former Deputy General Director for the implementation of the state armament program of the Roscosmos State Corporation, who previously headed the Mozhaisky Military Space Academy and the General Directorate armaments of the Ministry of Defense. He and other defendants in the TFR are charged with committing a number of corruption-related crimes. According to the verdict of the court, the accused face decades in high-security colonies.
Oleg Frolov, former Deputy Director General for the implementation of the Roscosmos State Armament Program, Alexander Miridonov / Kommersant
A law enforcement source told Kommersant that the main investigative department of the TFR has completed the investigation of a criminal case against Oleg Frolov, 63-year-old former director general of the state armament program of Roscosmos State Corporation, Dmitry Filippov, a former specialist in the innovation service of PJSC Electromechanika, and his namesake Mikhail Filippov, director of Kobitek LLC near Moscow.". In the final version, they were charged with especially large-scale fraud, accepting bribes and money laundering (Part 4 of Article 159, Part 6 of Article 290 and Part 4 of Article 174.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
It should be noted that corruption-related episodes appeared in the investigation only in December 2024, in fact, on the day when the defendants were supposed to announce the end of the preliminary investigation into fraud. As a result, the chairman of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, extended the investigation period to the maximum possible one and a half years.
As Kommersant has already told, this criminal case was initiated on December 19, 2023. The very next day, Oleg Frolov, Dmitry Filippov and Mikhail Filippov were detained, and the Basmanny court sent them to jail.
Initially, the investigation focused only on fraud in the creation of a barocomplex, a technological unit with a sealed vacuum test chamber measuring about 30 m in length and more than 4 m in width.
The uniqueness of the unit, it was said at its creation, lies in the fact that it "combines the functions of several high-precision instruments and devices necessary for the production of products in the field of aircraft, nuclear power, rocket, space and other high-tech industries."
In 2019, the customer of the work, represented by Krasnoyarsk Machine-Building Plant JSC (Krasmash), which is part of the Roscosmos State Corporation, accepted applications for participation in a closed competition from MMZ JSC, Zlatmash JSC and Electromechanika PJSC. In April of the same year, the last organization based in the city of Rzhev, Tver region, was recognized as the winner. A contract was signed with her for "performing a complex of construction, installation and commissioning works with the purchase of installed equipment at the Krasmash capital construction facility." After the unit was manufactured, it was sent to Krasmash.
According to the investigation, Reserve Lieutenant General Frolov, who previously headed the Mozhaisky Military Space Academy and the Main Directorate of Armament of the Ministry of Defense, and in 2018 became the executive director of Roscosmos for the implementation of defense programs, "using his official position," entered into a criminal conspiracy with two other accomplices of the crime. During the execution of the contract, as follows from the case file, they "misled the customer's representatives" and stole budget funds for the purchase of equipment in the amount of at least 435 million rubles, "which they disposed of at their discretion."
Neither the investigation nor the lawyers, who signed a non-disclosure agreement, are talking about the exact amounts in the episode of bribes and legalization that appeared at the very last moment.
According to Kommersant, the alleged receipt of a bribe is directly related to the development of the same barocomplex.
According to some reports, the defendants received kickbacks from representatives of various firms and organizations, allegedly for agreeing to purchase "accessories and other materials" from them at prices significantly higher than market prices.
The defense of the defendants, according to Kommersant, has already begun reviewing the materials of the criminal case, which contains more than 200 volumes. The lawyers did not discuss the actions incriminated to their clients with Kommersant. It is only known that none of the defendants admit their guilt.
