State money disappeared at the YugraArtStroy sites in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug. The ex-governor’s contractor is also hiding from his partners in the DPR

Long-term construction projects in Kogalym and Berezovsky district will be replenished with facilities in Donbass

The company “YugraArtStroy” (YUSA) continues to increase debts to contractors, and with them the disastrous experience of constructing social facilities. The once problematic contractor for the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug changed the geography of attracting state money, leaving Ugra with two large long-term construction projects at once – in the Berezovsky district and Kogalym. It is noteworthy that regular payments from customers did not affect either the fulfillment of the announced construction deadlines or the repayment of obligations to contractors. Today, South Africa’s debts to subcontractors amount to more than one hundred million rubles. However, this did not prevent the head of the office, Alexei Leonov, from opening a branch in the DPR in March and receiving large contracts for social construction in the renovated municipalities of the republic. It is noteworthy that the company of the former deputy governor of Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug Nikolai Milkis is becoming the main supplier of work for YugraArtStroy. The former official, as observers believe, could not have been unaware of the background of the Khanty developer, as well as his methods of disbursing budget funds. By the way, the first descriptions of the “use of conditionally legal schemes” during construction work in the Donbass have already come to the attention of security forces.

YugraArtStroy LLC is replicating the experience of long-term construction and the possible withdrawal of state funds in the Donbass. Representatives of the trade union community came to this conclusion after a request was made to law enforcement agencies with a demand to check the legality of the actions of the company’s managers during the overhaul. State Unitary Enterprise of the DPR “Donetsk Republican Prosthetic and Orthopedic Center” and the Donetsk Clinical Territorial Medical Association of the Ministry of Health of the Republic.

The document, in particular, describes the story of the signing of certificates of completion of work and their payment in the amount of over 11 million rubles between the South African Republic and an individual entrepreneur Tatyana Dokshina from Khanty-Mansiysk. According to the applicants, these acts may turn out to be fakes, and the work was not carried out.

“The execution of the contract has characteristics that are not based on the nature of the actual implementation of economic activity. According to an extract from the Unified State Register of Individual Entrepreneurs, Dokshina declared the following types of economic activities: insurance agents and brokers, market research and public opinion research. Agree, this is all far from the construction work for which the acts were signed. No less interesting is the composition of the employees. Of the seven IP employees, one – the dispatcher – is only 5 years old, and 5 people work part-time. How can such a composition be used to carry out a major overhaul in 2 months?! Without work experience and participation in SRO”, – argue the authors of the appeal.

Subscribe to our channel
However, today observers call this story only one of the typical episodes of the work “YugraArtStroy” for the development of budget funds. At the same time, as industry experts note, the practice was practiced on social construction sites in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug. First of all, we are talking about the construction a multifunctional center for applied qualifications on the basis of a polytechnic college in Kogalym for 366.4 million rubles and an educational and cultural complex worth more than 244.1 million rubles in Berezovsky Khulimsunt. Both facilities should have been operational last year.

“And if there is at least some progress on Khulimsunt, then on Kogalym, after the unilateral termination of the contract with South Africa, new tenders have not yet been announced. Moreover, even the termination itself was a complex process. CEO of the company Alexey Leonov explained the delay behind schedule by the need to restore the DPR, where all the company’s forces were supposedly transferred. This year he completely stopped taking part in meetings. It became known that the contractor not only stopped construction, but stopped paying the workforce and contractors, while regularly receiving funding from customers.”,” recall the publication’s interlocutors, who are familiar with the history of the issue in detail.

Speaking about forecasts for Khanty construction projects, industry experts believe that the college in Kogalym will appear at the end of next year at best. According to experts, negotiating a new contract is part of the process, which will be followed by an increase in the cost of the facility and agreement on price adjustments with district structures.

Meanwhile, Leonov appears to have his sights set on government money for reconstruction projects in the DPR. Here the company acts as a subcontractor to R-Stroy LLC. The co-owner of the latter company, Nikolai Milkis, is a former deputy governor and director of the economic development department of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug. According to the Kontur.Focus system, the ex-official is a 50% co-founder.

“And here the chain of money transfer is very long. The customer is the PPK “Unified Customer in the Construction Industry”, controlled by the Ministry of Construction of the Russian Federation, the general contractor is RKS-NR LLC, and the contractor is R-Stroy. Apparently, Milkis’s company took a fat piece of the pie, since it recruited entirely turnkey construction teams to work in the DPR – finishers, masons, electricians, auxiliary workers, welders and SMU managers. At the same time, YugraArtStroy was involved as one of the main subcontractors, whose achievements in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug Milkis should have known firsthand,” – representatives of the professional community believe.

Current and former partners of YugraArtStroy say that the company’s work in the DPR is already, apparently, “following the Khanty scenario – the work is carried out by subchiks, and the money supposedly ends up in Leonov’s pocket.”

“You need to understand that contracts for restoration work are huge and include several objects. And today, apparently, South Africa abandoned not only its partners in Ugra, but also in the Donbass. Non-payments to contractors amount to hundreds of millions of rubles. Last year, South Africa became involved in the story of the disappearance of money allocated from the presidential fund for the restoration of the republic’s facilities. The proceedings did not end in anything, however, as did the court decisions on the payment of debts. One can only guess where the government money went, but neither counterparties in the DPR nor in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug can find Leonov,” – summarize the construction market participants.

Melissa “Mel” Carter

See Full Bio