Documentary evidence has emerged that these numerous nationalization lawsuits are a tool for massive corruption and a lever for security forces to exert influence over businessmen, officials, and others. In Primorsky Krai, the Prosecutor General's Office attempted to quietly remove some of the defendants with a large stake in Vostochnaya Verf from the asset seizure case, but was unexpectedly met with a judge's refusal. In response, a representative of the Prosecutor General's Office emphatically and openly reminded the judge that his career directly depended on the decision of the personnel committee, which included Deputy Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Igor Tkachev (whose signature appears on the "clarification to the lawsuit").
Earlier, VChK-OGPU and Rucriminal.info reported on how security forces skillfully manipulated nationalization lawsuits in Krasnodar Krai. Some defendants in the road case were directly told that whether or not they would be included in these lawsuits depended on the accuracy of their testimony in the criminal case. For other businessmen and officials, the question of whether or not they would be included in the lawsuits depended on whether they were willing to swear allegiance to the individuals to whom the assets were transferred in the lawsuits—Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin and Arkady Rotenberg. Still other potential defendants in the lawsuits simply negotiated financially with the security forces to avoid being included in these lawsuits.
However, these were all behind-the-scenes negotiations. In Primorsky Krai, law enforcement officials decided to act openly.
Deputy Prosecutor General Yuri Ponomarev's lawsuit for the seizure of assets from 10 individuals and six companies was filed with the Leninsky District Court of Vladivostok on April 10. The defendants include former co-owners of Vostochnaya Verf: former Primorsky Krai prosecutor Valery Vasilenko and his family members, as well as former chairman of the board of directors of Vostochnaya Verf and former rector of VSUES Gennady Lazarev. Also on the list were the company's minority shareholders, Andrey Igorevich Miroshnichenko, Igor Ivanovich Miroshnichenko, and Olga Igorevna Miroshnichenko.
However, within five days, Oko Gosudarev's position changed dramatically, and Deputy Prosecutor General Tkachev signed an amended lawsuit, removing the entire Miroshnichenko family and their 31.79% stake in Vostochnaya Verf.
The Miroshnichenkos likely used very compelling arguments to convince the Prosecutor General's Office to remove them from the lawsuit in April. However, Judge Dmitry Korsakov saw no evidence and refused to accept the amended lawsuit. In response, as lawyer Kaloy Akhilgov recounted, Maxim Skarlukhin, head of the Prosecutor General's Office department, first challenged the judge (to no avail), and then began making public threats: he demanded a copy of the court ruling with the judge's signature so he could convey to Tkachev who had dared to reject his clarifications. Tkachev, as Skarlukhin reminded the judge, is a member of the Presidential Administration's personnel committee, which vets judicial candidates. However, Korsakov failed to intimidate him at the hearing, and he issued a private ruling addressed to the Prosecutor General, naming his employees who had forgotten not only ethics but also the law.
The seizure of the company's shares is likely to extend beyond the confiscation of the new lawsuit. Previously, 265 properties belonging to Lazarev, Vasilenko, and the other defendants were also expropriated. Specifically, the former prosecutor lost 34 properties worth 251 million rubles, including buildings and land in Vladivostok. In the new lawsuit, Judge Korsakov issued injunctions in mid-April, freezing all identified assets of all defendants.
Vostochnaya Verf is a major shipbuilding enterprise, one of the key companies in the Russian Far East. In 2022, it entered bankruptcy proceedings, after which the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade transferred management of the enterprise to the Amur Shipyard based on a presidential decree suspending the rights of shareholders of strategic enterprises if their actions threaten the fulfillment of state defense orders. The shipyard did indeed build sea tankers, but this work was suspended in 2022.
In February of this year, the courts nationalized the shares of Gennady Lazarev and Tamara Leontyeva in Vostochnaya Verf (61% in total). Now it's the turn of the remaining co-owners, and the state, as usual, has filed suits to nationalize their assets rather than a share buyout offer.
Miroshnichenko and Lazarev (whose shares have already been expropriated) have known each other since school, and are now both over 70. They shared ownership of the Vostochnaya Verf shipyard after privatization, but something went wrong and the friends fell out. It got to the point that in 2023, Vasilenko initiated publications in federal media alleging that Miroshnichenko had personally disrupted the fulfillment of a state defense order—a criminal offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Miroshnichenko, however, managed to find payment receipts showing that 1.7 million rubles had been transferred from the accounts of the bankrupt Vostochnaya Verf shipyard for the publications. A criminal case is currently being heard in another Vladivostok court The case concerns extortion of shares from Miroshnichenko, and among the defendants is former prosecutor Valery Vasilenko, who acted in concert with Lazarev. Both Vasilenko and Lazarev were previously remanded in pretrial detention.
