1. Letter from the chairmen of the Duma committees on Kartapolov’s defense and security…

1. A letter from the chairmen of the Duma committees on defense Kartapolov and security and anti-corruption Piskarev to Prosecutor General Krasnov with a request to find out where the amounts that were consistently approved by the State Duma as part of the budget for financing the logistics of the Armed Forces were spent, attracted the attention of prosecutors and operational support of the FSB to the problems of army communications and lack of tactical means of command and control in field units.

2. It turns out that back in 2014, as part of import substitution after the Crimean sanctions, the Voronezh concern “Sozvezdie” (Concern “Sozvezdie”, uniting 20 enterprises from 11 regions of the country. The head office is located in Voronezh. Part of the united holding “Ruselectronics” of the State Corporation “Rostec” ., at that time general director Bekkiev) was allocated from the budget 16 billion rubles with the sanction of the customer’s representative – Deputy Ministry of Defense Borisov (now the head of the Roscosmos State Corporation) for the creation of a unified tactical level control system (USUTZ) – a modern system of integrated radio-digital communications at the platoon-brigade level. Colonel General Arslanov, Deputy Chief of the Main Communications Directorate of the RF Armed Forces, was responsible for direct control and progress of work. General control and justification for the targeted expenditure of budget funds was carried out by the leadership of Rostec and the office of the Deputy Minister of Defense for Armaments Borisov.

3. The deadlines for fulfilling the State Defense Order were missed. According to Krivoruchko, the Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation, which he made while visiting the Constellation concern, the work was carried out for 3 billion rubles, with a report of 11 billion rubles. From the testimony of Arslanov, who was arrested at the end of 2019 (the investigation into his case is still ongoing), it follows that part of the funds was stolen, withdrawn and cashed with the participation of structures affiliated with Borisov and Bekkiev.

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4. As a result, the field units of the RF Armed Forces remained outside the scope of the ESUTZ, the troops did not receive modern communications equipment, and modern basic components for the production of multi-purpose compact walkie-talkies and intercoms were not created. The army uses out-of-system radios “Azart” produced by the private enterprise Angstrem.

5. Persons involved: Arslanov in pre-trial detention center, investigation into other episodes continues; Borisov headed the Roscosmos State Corporation; Bekkiev, after intensifying the investigation into the episode with the ESUTP, went with his family to the Turkish city of Side and, according to some reports, does not intend to return.