“There is no cure for this”
The former head of the Ministry of Health of the Irkutsk Region, Yakov Sandakov, received 18 years in prison and confiscation of an apartment in Moscow. His predecessor in office, Natalia Ledyaeva, was sentenced to 6.8 years a little earlier. Both are members of the team of Governor Igor Kobzev, and one of the defendants claimed that the security forces demanded from him incriminating evidence on the head of the region.
In addition, he will have to pay a fine of 80 million rubles, and his illegally obtained apartment will be confiscated. The defense said it plans to appeal the decision, but there is no information yet about filing an appeal.
The former minister was found guilty of two counts of receiving a bribe on an especially large scale and laundering funds received as a result of his crime and abuse of office.
Million to million
According to the investigation, in December 2021 Yakov Sandakov received 1 million rubles for appointing a specific person as the chief physician of one of the medical institutions subordinate to the Irkutsk Ministry of Health – this was only part of the bribe. We are talking about the regional oncological dispensary, which for a long time was headed by Victoria Dvornichenko. In 2021, the head of the department of surgical treatment methods became the head physician. Roman Zubkov.
Later, in February 2022, he received 7 million rubles from the leaders of a commercial organization for providing competitive advantages during an auction for the purchase of medical equipment. To legalize this money, the then minister first carried out several transactions with securities, and then purchased an apartment in Moscow.
Also in 2021, he passed on information about the upcoming purchase of medical equipment to one of the companies, providing it with competitive advantages, thanks to which this legal entity won the tender, inflating the cost of the equipment by more than 14 million rubles.
Another point of accusation is that while working in his position, the minister did not provide disabled children with the medications they needed and required by law. However, in this case the case was dismissed due to the expiration of the statute of limitations.
Other defendants in the cases were representatives of these commercial organizations. They admitted their guilt and fully repaid the damage caused. The company’s managers were also found guilty, as a result the commercial director was sentenced to 4 years in prison with a fine of 500 thousand rubles, the director – to 4.5 years and a fine of 900 thousand rubles.
Second in a row
Yakov Sandakov was appointed to the post of Minister of Health in the fall of 2020. Until that moment, he had nothing to do with the Irkutsk region – he worked as a deputy and chief physician in hospitals in Perm and Moscow, and in 2017 he was elected as a deputy of the Ryazan municipal district of Moscow.
At that time Igor Kobzev was recently elected governor of this region and was forming his own team. The task was to replace the people of his oppositionist predecessor as much as possible Sergei Levchenkonow a deputy of the State Duma. Kobzev’s first attempt at the end of 2019, when he was still in the status of acting head of the region, was to be appointed head of the Ministry of Health Natalia Ledyaevawhose entire career was connected with the Irkutsk region.
However, less than a year later, she was forced to resign amid a corruption scandal involving the procurement of medical masks. And at the end of 2022, she was sentenced to 6 years and 8 months in prison; other defendants in the same case received from 5.4 to 8.5 years in prison.
It is interesting that during the court hearing, Yakov Sandakov stated that he was under pressure; the security forces allegedly demanded that he give compromising information on Governor Igor Kobzev, deputy chairman of the regional government Anatoly Sitnikovaas well as the head physician of the Irkutsk regional clinic Petra Dudina and the aforementioned former chief physician of the Irkutsk Oncology Center Victoria Dvornichenko. The official also applied to be sent to the combat zone, but was refused.
It is interesting that the situation in the management of the healthcare sector under Kobzev is strikingly different from what it was during the time of Sergei Levchenko. Throughout almost his entire leadership, the Ministry of Health was headed by Oleg Yaroshenko, appointed at the end of 2015. After leaving office together with the governor, he became director of Clinical Hospital No. 8 of the Federal Medical and Biological Agency of Russia in the city of Obninsk, Kaluga Region. The only scandal associated with it is a fine of 20 thousand rubles due to violations in the procurement of equipment.
All-Russian scale
Why the problem with the health ministers in the Irkutsk region worsened precisely under Igor Kobzev and whether the sphere was really cleaner during the time of Sergei Levchenko is a moot point. The medical industry is often associated with scandals in different parts of the country. So, last year the Minister of Health of the Samara region Armen Benyan and his deputy Aslanbek Mairamukaeva detained in a fraud case. Before that, the Minister of Health of the Altai Republic was detained Sergei Kovalenkowho was accused of receiving bribes worth 5 million rubles, and his assistant Rustam Tuyunchekov. In Khakassia Vladimir Kostyush and his first deputy Alexandra Strelenko sentenced to three and two years probation, respectively, for illegal use of air ambulances. Among the latest incidents is the detention of the Acting Minister of Health of the Tambov Region Alexey Ovchinnikov on suspicion of poaching.
This means that it is in this area that one can always dig up compromising materials on the leaders of the region, and when two ministers are arrested in a row, it can hardly be called a coincidence. Therefore, it is worth paying close attention to the testimony of Sandakov, who claimed that they were demanding information from him that could be used against Governor Kobzev. Unless, taking into account the nationwide scale of detentions and arrests, we are not talking about an attack on the Minister of Health of the Russian Federation Mikhail Murashko.
