The Ugra Development Fund’s investment in Polar Quartz ended in criminal cases. The list of interested persons includes deputy governors

Security forces are looking for theft at a plant construction site in Nyagan

Criminal proceedings surrounding the case of abuse of power during the construction of a polar quartz processing plant in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug may be replenished with new episodes. Observers believe that the damage caused to the Polar Quartz state project may be supplemented by stories of fraud. At the same time, the person involved in them, apparently, will be the Ugra-Alliance company, which two years ago received a contract for the construction of the plant. However, today both security officials and representatives of the trade union community doubt the effectiveness of these decisions. As it turned out, the Polar Quartz company still receives multimillion-dollar support annually from district structures, while the organization’s ability to independently pay for its current needs is very vague. Apparently, last year’s $200 million cooperation agreement with the Jiangsu SohoTextile Group Co. did not help the project either. While the company’s management and the Ugra Development Fund continue to talk about the prospects for investments by an investor from China, and security forces carry out operational activities, observers suggest looking for those interested in this story among the immediate circle of the former governor of Ugra.

The interests of the curators of the polar quartz processing project in the government of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug may appear in new criminal cases. Currently, as the publication’s sources say, the Investigative Committee’s Investigative Committee for Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug-Yugra and the FSB are focusing on the execution of the contract for the construction of a specialized plant in Nyagan. Thus, a criminal case has already been initiated against the general director of JSC Polar Quartz, Alexander Ermolin, who, among other things, heads the JSC Management Company Industrial Parks of Ugra.

To clarify, Ermolin is suspected of violations under Parts 1 and 3 of Article 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Exceeding official powers.” According to the publication’s sources, the manager’s actions caused economic damage to the interests of the joint-stock company as a result of the construction of the plant.

Government of Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug

This turn of events did not at all surprise representatives of the trade union community, who recall multimillion-dollar injections into an ineffective and costly project for the region. Just last week, a column about the allocation of 100 million rubles again appeared on the agenda of the expert council of the Ugra Development Fund. The funds were planned to be spent on wages, taxes, legal expenses, and repayment of overdue accounts payable. Financial support for a joint-stock company is provided in the form of a contribution to the organization’s property without increasing the authorized capital.

The words of the interlocutors are confirmed by the information certificate that was presented to the expert council. Thus, according to the document, in the period 2020-2024 the fund financed JSC Polar Quartz for 729 million rubles. At the same time, the capitalization of the enterprise amounted to about 600 million.

Meanwhile, insiders report that the management of Yugra-Alliance LLC, which in 2022 became the contractor for the construction of the second stage of a complex for the production of quartz concentrate in the city of Nyagan, may also face criminal charges. It is noteworthy that the organization became the only participant in the procurement and had to complete the work for 150 million rubles.

Then industry experts doubted the success of this construction. They based their fears on the lack of experience in working with large government contracts at the company, which had only two employees. Before the plant in Nyagan, the largest order from Ugra-Alliance was the improvement of the LesOk eco-park in Khanty-Mansiysk.

Let us recall that the construction of workshops in Ugra began back in 2007 under the supervision of the notorious Development Corporation, the main shareholders of which were the regions of Greater Tyumen. Later, the completion of the facilities was frozen due to lack of funds, despite the previously allocated 3.7 billion rubles from the budget. In 2011-2012, 4 criminal cases were initiated against the former director of the enterprise, Alexander Mitrofanov.

The manager was arrested, but later released on bail of 3 million rubles. In 2012, the investigation was presented with documents stating that Alexander Mitrofanov died of heart problems in Makhachkala. However, in February 2016, he was discovered in Israel, where he lived under an assumed name. In 2019, ex-governor of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug Natalya Komarova announced the seizure of the company’s shares from the Development Corporation, which at that time was being prepared for liquidation after the “successful work of the notorious managers Beletsky and Maslov.”