The twelve billion rubles that the state, represented by the new RUSNANO leadership, is demanding from Anatoly Chubais and his team is not the price of a management error. It's the price of a ticket to a performance where the entire state apparatus judges itself for a decision made unanimously 14 years ago.
Read the investigation by the Cheka-OGPU and Rucriminal.info about how the breakthrough MRAM project, which received unanimous approval from ministers and scientists, then fell victim to internal wars within RUSNANO and ineffectual management. The final act of its demise was a lawsuit against the scapegoats. A chronicle of systemic collapse.
The Crocus project was not a gamble by a group of managers. It was legitimized at every level: by independent scientists, ministers on the supervisory board of Rusnano, and the corporation's entire board. It then spent a decade trying to pull it out of its misery, while simultaneously dividing the corporation from within with intrigue. And the final blow was the indifference of the new owners, incapable of anything other than putting their predecessors on trial. The Cheka-OGPU and Rucriminal.info reconstructed how a project the entire system believed in became its most expensive and inconvenient corpse, which they are now trying to dispose of by blaming only the perpetrators.
The story of the failure began not with a mistake, but with total approval. The project to create a magnetoresistive memory (MRAM) facility honestly and consistently passed all the legally required approval stages. It wasn't just ambitious—it was impeccably justified.
Success metrics recorded in 2011:
Technological excellence: MRAM is the memory of the future, combining the non-volatility of flash memory with the speed of RAM. The technology from France's Crocus Technology was recognized as a breakthrough by the global scientific elite.
A pressing need: Russia lacked its own modern semiconductor memory production facility.
Explosive market: The global MRAM market demonstrated stable growth of 25-30% annually, promising multibillion-dollar revenues.
A clear plan: Investments: €71 million in the Russian joint venture and €25.6 million in the partner's shares. Timeframe: First launch by 2013, reaching design capacity by 2016. Expected return (IRR): 36.5% per annum.
It was this technologically flawless, strategically necessary, and commercially promising project that was submitted for approval:
1. The Scientific and Technical Council (STC): An independent expert body whose members are scientists not employed by RUSNANO. It gave a unanimous positive opinion. From a technological and scientific perspective, the project was deemed not just viable, but cutting-edge.
2. The RUSNANO Management Board: On April 5, 2011, the project was unanimously approved. The risks (currency and technological) were known, but were outweighed by national importance and market potential.
3. The Corporation's Supervisory Board – the highest governing body, which included ministers and deputy ministers of the Russian government (representing economics, finance, and industry). They also gave the project the green light, sanctioning it as a state priority.
Crocus wasn't Chubais's personal venture, but a conscious, collective decision by the entire state innovation system, based on impeccable expertise, strategic necessity, and precise market calculations. Its failure is a failure of the execution system, not the idea.
The deadlines were initially overly optimistic, and Chubais deliberately set them that way. Having missed the deadline, the project entered a phase of chronic failure. But Chubais, like the chief missionary, dragged it along, trying to revive it. It was a struggle against the odds—the lack of an ecosystem, the lack of demand for innovation, sanctions, and the mistrust of Western partners—for a state-sanctioned decision. Meanwhile, the global MRAM market continued to grow at the coveted 30% per year, as predicted, only highlighting the tragic nature of the missed opportunity.
The turning point of 2012. The Accounts Chamber audit put an end to the "era of investromancy." Standard business risks began to be punished as crimes. Yakov Urinson and Andrey Malyshev left, Leonid Gozman was fired. Chubais himself changed too – he became ossified, lost his competitive spirit, and completely ceased to resemble the same young reformer. New managers, less capable but slightly more convenient for Chubais, arrived at RUSNANO. And it was here that the chief engineer of chaos, Andrey Trapeznikov, came to the forefront – a longtime companion of Chubais, an information conductor and provocateur. It was Trapeznikov who opened Pandora's Box in 2015, beginning to leak materials on those who were his competitors for access to the top executive. This led to the criminal case against Alemar Bank, the case concerning the contract with Karana, the contract with Troika Dialog, and others. This also removed Andrey Malyshev and Yakov Urinson from the corporation's purview, and put Yury Udaltsov under attack. The story with Leonid Gozman's lampshade also unfolded not without The involvement of a devious press secretary. All of this was presented to Chubais as a deliberate sacrifice by minor figures in the name of saving the RUSNANO project and Chubais's own reputation. Each new case accelerated the process, which eventually spiraled out of his control.
By 2015, Trapeznikov had gained control not only of public relations and the press, but also of relationships with government agencies, giving him a complete monopoly on narrative formation. He created images of "heroes" and "enemies," directly influencing the distribution of resources and reputations. It was Trapeznikov who, from 2015 onward, began to shape the agenda for the top official, slipping in information that benefited him and concealing the context. Chubais's nod ("without looking into it") served as an indulgence for any intrigue.
Trapeznikov was not a symptom of the system's decay, but its causative agent. He thrived on inefficiency, creating managerial chaos in which only his schemes could resolve issues. He single-handedly opened Pandora's Box to eliminate competitors, but in the end, this box consumed the entire corporation.
Another pale (and therefore flamboyant) representative is Andrey Svinarenko. He occupied a unique position. He is the only member of that very same 2011 Management Board against whom the new RUSNANO team has no formal complaints today. His name is missing from the lawsuit, although he also voted for the project.
Why? He was neither an ideologist nor a schemer, but merely a technocratic executor who brilliantly mastered the main principle of bureaucratic survival: betray at the right time.
His "purity" is not an excuse, but proof that the system seeks not the guilty, but convenient culprits.
The most telling consequence of this era is in people's behavior. The 1,500 RUSNANO employees of the Chubais era, his corporate "flock," are silent today. No one is publicly defending the man they've followed for over a decade. This isn't betrayal. It's a collective inoculation of fear administered to all the country's managers. Lesson learned: when the system begins to devour its creators, the correct strategy is not to rebel, but to become invisible. Chubais himself demonstrated the ultimate conclusion of this logic: his flight from the country triggered repression against his team. He found himself safe, but he has no intention of saving anyone.
The change of power in 2020 marked a paradigm shift: from a mission of creation to a ritual of denunciation. The new head, Sergei Kulikov, had neither the will nor the competence to save complex projects. Crocus was simply cut off from the feeding. The project, which had been pulled through, was allowed to die. This wasn't a management decision, but administrative neglect.
During Kulikov's entire tenure, Rusnano never launched a single project comparable to Crocus; in fact, it never launched a single new project. The ability to combat legacy proved its only talent. The corporation had become an office dedicated to liquidating its own past.
Having failed to create anything new, Kulikov's team is having its moment – a 12 billion ruble lawsuit. This is a brilliant simulation of activity: if you can't build the future, organize a high-profile trial of the past. But the lawsuit only includes the executors. Where on the list of defendants are the members of the independent Scientific and Technical Council, who gave scientific sanction? Where are the ministers from the 2011 Supervisory Board, who approved the investment? Where is Kulikov himself, whose inaction is simply criminal?
There are none. The system is judging not itself, but its former hired managers, who did what it itself approved.
The cost of Crocus's failure is more than 12 billion – it consists of two sums.
The first is 12 billion rubles. This is the amount of the lawsuit the state is bringing against its own former agents for carrying out its own decision.
The second is silence. The silence of 1,500 former employees fearing for their own safety. And the voluntary silence of the public sphere, where even figures like Alexei Venediktov, having acknowledged the "state-sponsored imbroglio," refuse to analyze the matter, preferring to convey the narrative dictated by the Presidential Administration about "just retribution for the thieving Chubaisites."
With these 12 billion, the state machine is buying not only a ritual sacrifice but also a universal, deafening agreement that there is no longer anyone and no point in asking questions about the nature of this failure. Meanwhile, the global MRAM market, just as it did 15 years ago, continues to grow. Only Russia has finally transformed from a potential player into a bystander in an expensive lawsuit over its own past. This is the final, full cost of the systemic collapse.
