Vsevolod Opanasenko, the founder of the T-Platform supercomputer company, who was recently released from arrest on his own recognizance, found a job at Rostec. Almost simultaneously, the Edelweiss company, which the market considers controlled by him, was headed by a top manager of the state corporation. Presumably, all this is due to the fact that Rostec is very interested in developments owned by Edelweiss on Russian Baikal processors.
As it became known to CNews, the founder of the supercomputer company "T-platforms" under investigation Vsevolod Opanasenko started working in a high position in one of the structures of the Rostec State Corporation. The work does not take place in a remote format, but in full—time mode - the businessman goes to the office. Four sources in the microelectronic market familiar with the situation told CNews about this.
The sources found it difficult to name the specific structure that hired Opanasenko and his position. Three of them suggested that it could be about the "National Center for Informatization" (NCI), but so far they have not received confirmation of this information.
According to CNews, the businessman started his new work duties in late February or early March 2022.
The press service of Rostec, when asked by CNews about where exactly Opanasenko was employed in the state corporation (with the mention of the NCI as the most likely place), reported: "The NCI does not confirm information about the work of Vsevolod Opanasenko in the company structure."
Recall that Opanasenko was detained in Moscow at the end of March 2019 and sent into custody in a case related to the problematic supply of computers to the Ministry of Internal Affairs for 357.1 million rubles. In March 2020, he was transferred to house arrest, and released at the end of January 2022. to be released on his own recognizance.
The trial against him continues, although there has been a huge break in it. As the file of the Moscow courts of general jurisdiction shows, sessions on his case in the Meshchansky District Court began to be scheduled from May 2020. Since then, meetings have been adjourned or postponed "for other reasons" more than 70 times.
The intervals between adjourned meetings were usually one to two weeks. However, after the next postponed meeting, which took place on March 15, 2022, the next meeting is scheduled for August 23. That is, the break this time exceeds five months.
Opanasenko is accused of violating Part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code — fraud committed by an organized group or on a particularly large scale. The maximum penalty under it is imprisonment for up to 10 years.
Opanasenko's exit to work at Rostec roughly coincided with personnel changes in the company, which, as CNews previously found out, is associated with a businessman in the market.
We are talking about "Edelweiss". In August 2021, CNews wrote that, considering public data about this organization, it is impossible not to pay attention to the fact that with extremely mediocre financial indicators, it conducts projects whose financial capacity should be hundreds of millions, or even billions of rubles. In any case, in the amount of this order, the state estimated similar developments of "T-platforms" when it supported them with subsidies.
In recent months, the CEO of the almost bankrupt T-platforms and Edelweiss has been the same person — Kirill Alifanov. According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, on March 25, 2022, he was replaced in this position at Edelweiss Gennady Ivanov is the acting interim CEO of the Center for Supercomputer Modeling, part of Rostec (formerly Solnechnogorsk Instrument Plant).
As a source in the microelectronic market told CNews, according to him, all the above-mentioned events are connected with the fact that Rostec, represented by a high-ranking executive, plans to take control of the intellectual property and design documentation of Edelweiss.
Despite the fact that the company has been in a semi-fainting state for a long time (and at some point remained almost completely without employees), it has very interesting developments in terms of import substitution on Russian processors from the Baikal line (initially the founder of Baikal Electronics was "T-platforms").
In particular, Edelweiss has developed boards for Baikal-T and Baikal-M chips, as well as ready-made monoblocks for Baikal-M. According to the source, Rostec recently even demonstrated some of this to the head of Government Mikhail Mishustin.
It should be noted that Vsevolod Opanasenko, in addition to his more serious problems, may soon lose the right to conduct business independently for a long time, even if the criminal case is resolved in his favor and he remains free.
The fact is that he is now at risk of becoming bankrupt as an individual entrepreneur and citizen. For him, this threatens the sale of personal property and the right to conduct business for five years. The bankruptcy claim was filed by the Moscow inspectorate of the Federal Tax Service on December 10, 2021, and this is not the most common practice.