“You bring me the man and I will find you the crime.”
Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria
The Ulyukayev Case
Russian prosecutors charged Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev with extortion 15 November 2016 and requested he be placed under house arrest in the highest-level corruption case of its kind in decades. Ulyukayev’s lawyer said he denies the charges.
Russia’s Investigative Committee (SK) claimed Ulyukayev received $2 million he demanded from state oil company Rosneft in return for a positive assessment from his ministry on a controversial October deal that saw Rosneft purchase a 50 percent government stake in another government-owned oil company, Bashneft. Prosecutors allege Ulyukayev threatened to obstruct the acquisition if the bribe was not paid.
Russian authorities in 2014 seized control of Bashneft from oligarch owner Vladimir Yevtushenkov, who was charged with money-laundering and acquiring the company illegally, charges that were later dropped. Critics called it an asset-grab by the state and reminiscent of the government’s seizure of Yukos Oil Company from Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 2003.
This is the first time in modern Russia that a serving federal minister has been placed under arrest (so far under house arrest) and charged. A loyal representative of liberals in the power structures, Alexei Ulyukayev has worked in the government for a total of 11 years, and served another nine years as the first deputy chairman of the Russian Central Bank. While serving as economy minister, he advocated reforms against the strengthening of state control over the economy.
Analysts and observers question the charges as politically motivated and say the arrest of Ulyukayev more likely exposes an internal Kremlin battle between those for and against more state control of the dwindling Russian economy. Rosneft head Igor Sechin, a close ally of Putin, had been pushing for the deal, which would consolidate more of Russia’s oil industry under his control. Analysts poured doubt on the possibility that Ulyukayev or anyone else would demand a bribe from a company controlled by such a powerful and well-connected person as Sechin, let alone make threats.
Ulyukayev's detention turned out to be so surprising, and the charges so implausible, that many high-ranking officials could not resist speaking their mind, describing what is happening as "absurd" and a "strange accusation." Valery Khomyakov, CEO of the independent National Strategy Council, said the whole thing looks like a "set-up." "Igor Sechin is a longtime friend of Putin," he said. "Will a sane person threaten a friend of Putin? And $2 million is ridiculously small money for this level of official.”
How realistic are these accusations? Aleksandr Shokhin, chairman of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, said it best: “You’d have to be crazy to… threaten Rosneft and demand two million dollars from Igor Ivanovich Sechin [CEO of Rosneft], who is basically one of the most influential people in our country. It wasn’t the Investigative Committee’s job to detain Alexey Ulyukaev, but representatives of the Kashchenko Psychiatric Hospital.”
Putin said in September 2016 that the government hoped to bring in $11 billion with the sale of a 19.5 percent stake in Rosneft, which was to have been overseen by Ulyukayev. The privatization would, on the one hand, help the government's economic managers to solve the budget-deficit problem and, on the other, weaken Sechin's position as head of Rosneft. Sechin’s motives are quite clear. The sale of Rosneft shares to the “wrong people” could mean the loss of control over the company, which he considers his own. Observers expected the privatization of Rosneft would be postponed, if not entirely canceled. Mikhail Krutikhin, a partner in the RusEnergy consulting firm, suggested that Ulyukayev's arrest was "a beautiful way out of an ugly situation" for Sechin that will "close the matter of a Rosneft deal."
More broadly, Ulyukayev's arrest could signal the ascendency of the so-called siloviki bloc -- shorthand for those connected with the security agencies and the military -- over relative liberals in the sphere of economic policy. The case was a blow both to the positions of loyal liberals and their ideology, and probably the "blow will hit its target.” The Ulyukayev case is undoubtedly also a blow to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, but not so strong as to deprive him of his post. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, had originally opposed the Rosneft-Bashneft deal until Putin spoke in favor of it. Medvedev's political position had been very strong until Ulyukayev’s arrest, and it was further strengthened by the results of the elections held in September 2016.
The Kremlin did not comment on media reports about the alleged "operational development" of Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich and presidential aide Andrei Belousov. "This is a question that you want to ask - how it corresponds to reality - to the investigating authorities - said the press secretary of the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov, responding to a question. "We from the Kremlin can not answer these questions." Some media reported that the police, along with the rapid development of the former Minister of Economic Development Alexei Ulyukayev, worked through Dvorkovich, Belousov and assistant first deputy prime minister, Marina Romanova.
The term "operaitonal development" or "rapid development" is a counterintelligence term of art for in the broadest sense - the process of tacit comprehensive study in intelligence and counterintelligence for individual citizens, groups, organizations and institutions of the enemy, representing interest for the bodies of state security. In this meaning of the concept of operational development includes in itself the activities of operational employees on matters of operational accounting, aimed at obtaining and checking information of interest. In the narrow sense, it is a form of operational activities which is carried out in respect of specific persons (or groups ), suspected in involvement or involved in the preparation or commission of state crimes, and the purpose of which is the most complete opening of the criminal activity being developed and training measures its suppression.
Alexey Ulyukaev
- Born 23 March 1956 in Moscow.
- 1979 graduated from the Economics Department of Lomonosov Moscow State University.
- 1982 completed postgraduate studies the Economics Department of MSU. Ph.D. in Economics. Professor.
- Ph.D. in Economics from Pierre-Mendes University, Grenoble, France.
- 1982 - 1988 - the Assistant, the Associate Professor in the Moscow University of Civil Engineering.
- 1988 - 1991 - the Consultant, the Department Head of the "Communist" magazine editorial office.
- 1991 - the political reviewer in "Moskovskiye Novosti" newspaper.
- 1991 - 1992 - the Economic Councillor of the Government of the Russian Federation.
- 1992 - 1993 - the Director of the Group of Councillors for the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation.
- 1993 - 1994 - the Assistant of the First Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation.
- 1994 - 1996 - the Deputy Director of the Economic Problems of the Transitional Period Institute.
- 1996 - 1998 - the Deputy Chairperson of the Moscow City Duma.
- 1998 - 2000 - the Deputy Director of the Economic Problems of the Transitional Period Institute.
- 2000 - 2004 - the First Deputy Minister of Finance of the Russian Federation.
- 2004 - 2013 - the First Deputy Chairperson of the the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.
- From 24 June 2013 - the Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation.
- 14 November 2016 - arrested red-handed by members of the Investigative Committee
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