The past two years have been marked by high-profile cases against senior command staff of various security agencies. Interior Ministry generals Umnov, Semenov, and Abakumov were convicted of bribery. At the Ministry of Defense, four deputy ministers and eight generals have been prosecuted, including the heads of the personnel and communications departments, deputy district commanders, and others. The charges are similar – embezzlement, bribery, and theft.
Representatives of the Federal Security Service have not yet appeared on the lists of those arrested and convicted. This seems to be for obvious reasons, but we will see them soon. Former head of the FSB's Directorate K, Viktor Voronin, may be among the first to be charged. Since 2019, the Main Directorate for Investigating Particularly Important Cases of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation has been investigating allegations of FSB officers' involvement in the corporate raid on one of Russia's largest butter producers. The complaint was filed by Alexey Bazhanov, the former owner of the Masloprodukt group of companies, accusing both Voronin and his former subordinates, Dmitry Frolov and Evgeny Cherkalin, of economic crimes.
It is significant that after 2019, both Frolov and Cherkalin were convicted in other large-scale corruption cases.
Bazhanov first drew law enforcement's attention to the Blago group of companies, one of whose co-owners is General Voronin's sister, Larisa. Another beneficiary, until recently, was Voronin's longtime business partner, Arkady Fosman. At the time, it appeared to be a conflict between business entities. But recently, the matter has taken a much more serious turn.
Now, Voronin's Blago Group is linked to both outright criminal activity (such as the death of its main shareholder), multi-billion-dollar embezzlement from state-owned banks, and such "minor" matters as large-scale tax evasion.
In 2024, relations between the business partners deteriorated so much that Fosman emigrated to the UAE and carefully concealed his whereabouts. He managed the business through letters. After receiving yet another batch of documents from Blago Group, both Fosman and his father, who had brought the documents from Russia, died within days of each other from very strange symptoms.
General Voronin failed to seize control of the lucrative business. Fosman had previously transferred his assets to his immediate family. The current head of Blago Group, Arkady Fosman's brother, Dmitry, is a defendant in the case of the embezzlement of billions of dollars from VEB.RF. He is already testifying, directly naming both Viktor Voronin (who covered up the illegal activity thanks to his connections in the security services) and his sister, Larisa, as accomplices in the thefts.
It's significant that the financial fraud of the Blago Group caused enormous damage not only to VEB. Witnesses and defendants claim that the business, with dubious asset value and opaque reporting, managed to obtain over 10 billion rubles in loans from Rosselkhozbank and Sberbank (even though the collateral for the loans was worth 10 times less). This was made possible thanks to Voronin's patronage. The former FSB general used his lobbying power and connections to pressure banks, forcing them to approve loans and resisting creditors' attempts to demand repayment.
Furthermore, Blago Group evaded VAT through a chain of shell companies and fictitious transactions, illegally underpaying the budget by over a billion rubles. The state (including through its banks) suffered enormous economic losses from the activities of the company controlled by Voronin. It is not surprising that now, when the issue of replenishing the budget is particularly pressing, law enforcement agencies are intensifying their investigations into such crimes.
Voronin currently serves as president of the Dynamo hockey club, which is financed by VTB Bank.
