Serious searches took place in the Ministry of regional development, or rather - in the Agency of the Far East for attracting investment and supporting exports. It is headed by the scandalous character Leonid Petukhov, who not so long ago was dedicated to the article of our publication called Mine while hot.
The article told that the Agency's plans to build an iron production plant together with Petropavlovsk — Iron Ore LLC may turn out to be a grandiose corruption dividing. According to sources of The Moscow Post, searches by security forces, details of which have not yet been reported, were the reaction of the law enforcement system to our publication.
If so, then Leonid Petukhov's days as head of the Agency are numbered, and Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Trutnev, who oversees the Ministry of regional Development, may have serious problems.
Searches in the Ministry for the development of the Russian Far East were confirmed, but not commented. According to rumours, they may be associated with large-scale corruption in the distribution of budget money to Finance investment projects in the Far East. But how did such an odious figure as Petukhov end up at the head of a Department that operates with hundreds of millions of budget rubles?
He appeared there in 2017 under very strange circumstances. And no less strange events began to occur in the Agency after his appointment. There were significant personnel changes, as a result of which Alexey Mineev, the investment analysis Director, left the Agency with a scandal.
Mineev was one of the most experienced and principled employees of the Department. He himself believes that he was dismissed illegally, and has repeatedly appealed to various authorities with information about the activities of the new Director General of the Agency Leonid Petukhov and his Deputy Konstantin Osipov - the brother of the acting head of the Trans-Baikal territory Alexander Osipov.
Under the wing of uncle Joe
We will return to Alexander and Konstantin Osipov later. But the whole story began in 2017 with the appointment of Leonid Petukhov. Today, his biography is posted on various sites on the Internet. The expanded part of it begins in 2017. About the past years, it is only said that Petukhov got a higher education and worked abroad. That's where the trouble lies.
Leonid Petukhov was actually educated abroad. To be more precise, at the American Harvard, which in itself could be a reason for law enforcement agencies to check it when entering the civil service. However, what is more important is where Petukhov worked for many years after University. And with whom.
And he worked in structures that many today believe are associated with people who allegedly became the instigators of the civil war in Ukraine and "rolled out" their own people with tanks and artillery. Yes, we are talking about Ukrainian oligarchs Igor Kolomoisky and Viktor Pinchuk.
Until 2008, Leonid Petukhov worked for a large international consulting company McKinsey & Company, which specializes in strategic management issues. The company is headquartered in new York, USA.
It is McKinsey & Company that is considered the main apologist for the implementation of US state doctrines in the global economy and the accompanying power introduction of "democracy". This was written by the Bloknot publication.
Individuals associated with McKinsey have repeatedly been caught up in international scandals. It is hard to believe that employees of such a structure are not "led" by the special services of our Western partners.
According to rumors, It was McKinsey analysts who worked out a sanctions policy against our country after the coup in Ukraine and the reunification of Crimea with Russia. Of course, because of this, the company received opposition to its projects in Russia. For example, at one time Dmitry Rogozin actively opposed its participation in the development of the Sevmorput, as RIA Novosti reported.
After McKinsey, Leonid Petukhov got a job as a top Manager in the equally odious Geo Alliance structure of Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Pinchuk. Detractors call the latter, along with Kolomoisky, one of the key sponsors of the so-called Ukrainian volunteer battalion - paramilitary associations of nationalists who have caused a lot of trouble in the Donbas.
Petukhov served as Chief Executive Officer in Pinchuk's Geo Alliance. In addition, he was also one of the heads of another scandalous structure, the private gas production company Burisma Holdings, which was associated with the Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky. It is considered to be another patron of Ukrainian nationalists.
However, the name Burisma Holdings is known to the world community not only by the name of Kolomoisky, but also by the participation in the company of Hunter Biden, the son of Joe Biden, who was then Vice President of the United States. In April 2014, Hunter Biden joined the Board of Directors of Burisma Holdings.
His father, Joe Biden, is known for his attitude to Russia and our country's policy. He has repeatedly opposed the sanctions and other restrictions that the United States and its colleagues in Europe have imposed on Russia, demanding that it be punished for its independent foreign policy vector.
Formally, Burisma was controlled by the former Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine Mykola Zlochevsky, who is still the President of this company. However, as reported by Perviy Kanal, it later became clear that in July 2014, Igor Kolomoisky's Privat group gained control of Burisma Holdings.
Did Petukhov work for Joe Biden's family?
Thus, Leonid Petukhov can be strongly connected with a whole network of organizations and individuals who are probably ill-disposed towards Russia. That is, he can be an agent of their influence in the state structure. How did he get into the Agency? According to rumours, he was "put" there by Yuri Trutnev, and it was the administrative resource of the Deputy Prime Minister that did not allow him to cancel Petukhov's candidacy on the way to the Director's seat.
How Mineev was forced to leave
Petukhov immediately began to put things in order. First of all, to put people who are loyal to him in positions. And, he, allegedly, tried to squeeze out those who resisted the new management policy of the Agency.
Something similar could happen to the already mentioned Director of investment analysis Alexey Mineev. But Mineev did not want to leave just like that, the situation was accompanied by a big scandal. In addition, they say that Mineev was one of the first to try to draw the attention of the FSS to the appointment of Petukhov.
According to blogger alexey_mineev on the Live Journal portal, allegedly in 2017, he wrote an appeal to the FSS with a request to check Petukhov for connections with interested parties from other states. As it is known, at one time McKinsey, which is close to Petukhov, actively worked in Russia. Apparently, the blogger was afraid that as Director of the Agency Petukhov would make obviously unprofitable investment decisions for Russia.
And here the current head of the Trans-Baikal territory, Alexander Osipov, who was previously a Deputy of the Ministry of regional Development, comes to the scene. He was appointed to the region in 2018. And, what is most interesting, according to the authors of the site Aferist, allegedly it was Alexander Mineev who in the past supervised all McKinsey's projects in the Far East.
It was Alexander Osipov who was the curator of the project of the territory of advanced development (TAD). Allegedly, as part of this program, Osipov struggled to flood the Far East with labor from abroad, especially from China. If this is true, he managed to do a lot of things.
In parallel with this appointment of Osipov as the head of Trans-Baikal region, another one took place. Alexander Osipov's brother, Konstantin Osipov, became Deputy Director of Leonid Petukhov's Agency around the same time. And he, as can be assumed from open sources, could actively oversee Alexey Mineev's departure from work in the Agency.
Is Petukhov, like the Osipovs, a creature of the powerful Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Trutnev?
At the same time, it turned out that Osipov had previously held the position of head of direction in the Agency. However, as follows from Mineev's appeal to the FSS, no one allegedly heard about Osipov's work at the Agency. Like, he didn't even have a job in the Agency's only office in Moscow.
According to rumours, Mineev was categorically opposed to a number of investment schemes with foreign partners, obligations for which the Agency planned to take on. Apparently, principal employees Petukhov and Osipov were not needed.
Moreover, Mineev struggled to attract the attention of the general public to Petukhov's work at McKinsey. They say that this alone is extremely suspicious, and should have been one of the criteria for selecting Petukhov to work in the state structure. Part of the alleged correspondence between Mineev and other Agency employees got into the network.
If it is genuine, we can conclude that no one in the Agency and among higher officials (Yuri Trutnev?) didn't want to react. Now they will have to respond to searches by security forces.
As follows from additional materials sent by Mineev to various authorities, including the Government of the Russian Federation, he was allegedly forced to leave his job, they incorrectly communicated with him, as if they were looking for any disciplinary reason to leave Mineev with a "wolf ticket". For example, they could have set up a situation in which Mineev allegedly refused to go on a business trip, although in fact it could absolutely not correspond to reality.
"Muddy" Petukhov's projects
Anyway, Mineev still left the Agency, though with a big scandal. And Petukhov began to impose his own rules there, as a result of which the Agency got involved in a number of dubious projects. We have already mentioned the cooperation with Petropavlovsk Iron Ore LLC for the construction of a KNS Mine in the Jewish Autonomous region.
It turned out that the company was registered in the Cyprus offshore company Brasenose Services Limited. This offshore company has another subsidiary that operates in Russia - Uralmining LLC. Which, among other things, is engaged in mining cryptocurrencies.
It turns out that the most important project for the construction of a plant that will produce steel for the state shipyard Zvezda in the Far East appear to be directly linked to a foreign offshore company.
This suggested that instead of rolling steel, the plant's capacity can be used for mining cryptocurrencies. This information about offshore companies could be the reason for the visit of law enforcement officers to the Ministry of regional Development.
But this is not all. Quite strange offices with signs of fictitiousness began to appear in the Agency's subsidiaries under Petukhov and Osipov. For example, Management Company for the development of innovative technologies in the Far East LLC, established in 2019.
With an authorized capital of almost one and a half million rubles, it does not employ a single employee. For some reason, the company's book value is zero. How can this be, or is it a simple intermediary for withdrawing investment funds of budget origin?
In the same year 2019, Far Eastern mining company LLC became another subsidiary of the Agency. The structure with an authorized capital of 350 thousand rubles employs only one employee - its General Director Alexander Konkov. Not having had time to really enter the market, the company for 2019 received a loss of 94 thousand rubles, and the value of its assets on the market was only 256 thousand rubles. Why are such, as it may seem, fictitious offices needed?
We are sure that the answer to these and other questions raised above should occupy the minds of Leonid Petukhov and his curators today in connection with the visit of the security forces.
We will definitely monitor the development of events, as strong doubts are creeping in that people and individuals who may be associated with outright enemies of our country, and even, in addition, advocate such strange investment decisions, can head state institutions in Russia.