The criminal case of the former Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation Alexey Ulyukaev. What is the new Minister of Economic Development Maxim Oreshkin famous for? Large package of resignations
Photo: ntv.ru
On December 15, the Zamoskvoretsky Court of Moscow found the former Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation Alexey Ulyukaev guilty of taking a bribe and sentenced him to eight years in a maximum security colony. The court also imposed a fine on Ulyukaev in the amount of more than 130 million rubles and a ban on holding public office for 8 years after serving his sentence.
The court found that Ulyukaev received a bribe from the head of the Rosneft Group of Companies, Igor Sechin, for approving the transaction when he was purchased by the Bashneft company. According to investigators, the head of the oil company, Igor Sechin, gave the cash to Alexey Ulyukaev at the Rosneft office. Ulyukaev allegedly gestured to Sechin in the presence of VTB head Andrei Kostin during a visit to Goa that he wanted “gratitude” for approving the deal. Neither Kostin nor Sechin appeared in court as witnesses, and if the head of VTB was not summoned, then bailiffs were sent to Sechin with a summons four times. At a press conference the day before, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the head of Rosneft “could come to court.”
“As for Sechin and his failure to appear in court, if there is any violation of the law, then the law must respond to this accordingly. But, as far as I can imagine, and I was certainly interested because I saw the public’s reaction, the law has not been violated in any way. And, as the investigation believes, enough materials have been collected, including the testimony of Sechin himself. But I can’t help but agree that Sechin could have come to court - what’s the big deal here? I could repeat what he stated during the preliminary investigation and interrogations,” Putin said.
Instead of Sechin, his comrade-in-arms, FSB General Oleg Feoktistov, spoke at the trial. At the time of Ulyukaev’s arrest, he headed the security service of Rosneft. The general claimed that last fall, the head of Rosneft, Igor Sechin, told him about a $2 million bribe that Ulyukaev was extorting from him. After this, it was decided to put a microphone on Sechin. The audio recording in which the ex-minister extorted or simply mentioned a bribe was never made public.
Ulyukaev was handcuffed in the courtroom - before that he was under house arrest. The former minister arrived at the announcement of the verdict with a light bag: lawyers expected a suspended sentence, observers predicted a short sentence - up to 3 years with an amnesty after the inauguration in May 2018, or even the so-called “Vasilieva option”, when the former mistress of the Minister of Defense, accused of large embezzlement, appeared in the colony under cameras and immediately disappeared. However, expectations were not met. Speaking on December 7 with his last word, Ulyukaev said that he was the victim of a “monstrous and cruel provocation.”
“Imagine the situation. You have an official you know who for some reason you no longer like. You invite him for a walk and say: “Please hold my briefcase, my shoelace is untied!” And before you have time to tie it, good fellows jump out of the bushes, take this former friend under their white hands and send him to the pre-trial detention center. No person - no problem. However, opening Pandora’s box is easy, closing it will be much more difficult,” Ulyukaev said.
September 3, 2019, Technological development. Innovation On the signing of an Agreement of Intent between the Government of Russia and the Management Company of the Russian Direct Investment Fund in order to develop the high-tech field of Artificial Intelligence in Russia Order No. 1964-r dated September 3, 2019. The signing of the Agreement is aimed at attracting mutually beneficial cooperation between industrial, scientific, educational and other organizations, the pooling of efforts of which is necessary to achieve the target indicators of technological development in Russia.
August 19, 2019, Business environment. Development of competition Rules for the implementation of the action plan “Transformation of the business climate” were approved Resolution of August 10, 2019 No. 1042, order of August 10, 2019 No. 1795-r. The decisions made will make it possible to create a comprehensive system for the formation, monitoring and control of the implementation of the “Transformation of the Business Climate” action plan, establish the powers of expert groups and increase responsibility for the results of their activities, as well as involve business entities in the process of regulatory improvement of business conditions.
August 15, 2019, National Project “International Cooperation and Export” The Strategy for the Development of Exports of Services until 2025 was approved Order of August 14, 2019 No. 1797-r. The purpose of the Strategy is to create the prerequisites for increasing the competitiveness of Russian services in global markets and creating attractive conditions in Russia based on approaches to regulation and taxation of export activities.
August 12, 2019, History. Memory The federal target program “Perpetuating the memory of those killed in defense of the Fatherland for 2019–2024” has been approved Resolution of August 9, 2019 No. 1036. As part of the implementation of the federal target program “Perpetuating the memory of those killed in defense of the Fatherland for 2019–2024,” it is planned, in particular, to arrange and restore military graves on the territory of Russia, and to place the names of those killed in defense of the Fatherland on memorial plaques at the burial sites.
August 12, 2019 The government has submitted to the State Duma a bill on changes to the system of state registration of intellectual property objects Order of August 9, 2019 No. 1771-r. The bill is aimed at developing digital services in the field of examination and state registration of intellectual property. It is envisaged, in particular, that patents and state registration certificates will be issued by Rospatent in electronic form. It is also proposed to establish the possibility of including three-dimensional models of these objects in electronic form in applications for intellectual property.
August 6, 2019, Federal Property Management The government has submitted to the State Duma a bill to change the procedure for approving reporting requirements for companies with state participation Order No. 1750-r dated August 6, 2019. In accordance with current legislation, the competence of the highest management body of a state corporation and a state-owned company includes the approval of a long-term program of its activities and development, which provides for the implementation of production, investment and financial indicators, or another document on long-term planning. The main document for planning the activities of a public law company is a development strategy that defines the main directions, targets and expected results of its activities for a period of at least five years. In order to increase the efficiency of state corporations, state-owned companies and public law companies, the bill proposes to amend a number of federal laws that define the legal status of state corporations, state-owned companies and public law companies. The Russian government is proposed to be given the authority to approve the requirements for the form and content of their annual reports on the implementation of activity programs and development strategies.
July 29, 2019 The Commission on Legislative Activities approved a bill on changes in the system of state registration of intellectual property objects The bill is aimed at developing digital services in the field of examination and state registration of intellectual property. It is envisaged, in particular, that patents and state registration certificates will be issued by Rospatent in electronic form. It is also proposed to establish the possibility of including three-dimensional models of these objects in electronic form in applications for intellectual property.
July 23, 2019 About the Deputy Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation Order No. 1630-r dated July 22, 2019
July 19, 2019 About the Secretary of State - Deputy Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation Order of July 17, 2019 No. 1558-r
July 15, 2019 The Commission on Legislative Activities approved a bill to clarify the procedure for compensation for the forced seizure of real estate for state needs in the territories annexed to Moscow Pursuant to the decision of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation of February 11, 2019 No. 9-P. The adoption of the bill will make it possible for the owner or other legal holder of the seized property to exercise the right to receive fair and equivalent compensation for the forced seizure of real estate.
July 8, Monday The Commission on Legislative Activities approved a bill on the formation of a unified register of small and medium-sized businesses - recipients of support The bill provides for the formation of a unified register based on information about SMEs - recipients of support, which are included in the relevant registers of federal and regional authorities, local governments, JSC SME Corporation, determines the suppliers of such information and the procedure for their submission to the Federal Tax Service of Russia.
1In October 2017, the Ministry of Economic Development experienced a personnel crisis. After the appointment of the deputy head of the department by the governor of the Ivanovo region on October 10, only seven deputy ministers remained in the ministry. At the end of 2016, after the arrest of former minister Alexei Ulyukaev and the appointment of Maxim Oreshkin in his place, there were 12 deputies.
In addition to Stanislav Voskresensky, he received the governor's post in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug, and another deputy minister was headed by "".
But further recruitment of personnel was not easy. Speaking at the Atlanta business forum on October 6, the minister complained about the lack of highly qualified personnel and invited those wishing to get a job in the ministry to send him a resume on Facebook.
After the first 400 applications, the minister asked that resumes be sent not to him, but to personnel. After 3 days, the volume of applications exceeded a thousand. Maxim Oreshkin reported on Facebook that applications from people aged 31 to 35 years old amounted to 25%.
It turned out that this is not the first attempt to recruit personnel using methods unconventional for the Russian bureaucracy. Back in the spring and summer of 2017, the heads of large trade missions felt uncomfortable.
According to one of them, the Ministry of Economic Development refused to renew their contracts. And on August 9, an advertisement for the vacancy “sales representative of the Russian Federation (foreign apparatus)” appeared on the HeadHunter recruiting portal, indicating the salary “350,000-450,000 rubles. in your arms."
Trade representatives were sought for work in countries that were among the top countries in terms of foreign trade turnover: China, Germany, South Korea and France. In addition, trade representatives were required in Algeria, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Pakistan and Finland, as follows from the announcement on HeadHunter.
This offer was not active for long; a few days later the ad was transferred to the archive, where it was still available at the time of writing. The initiative was suppressed by the White House, sources said. However, employees at foreign missions also began to look for work, the official knows.
Maxim Oreshkin has already agreed on experiments with personnel selection with the president. On Saturday, October 20, the minister met with the president and said that the department “recently recruited” personnel through social networks. Now Maxim Oreshkin plans to find a deputy minister from among the winners of the “Leaders of Russia” competition. This competition is held under the patronage of.
Vitamin "Communicacin"
The Ministry of Economic Development is setting up an experiment not only to overcome the age crisis and the lack of specialists, as the main constraint on economic growth. With the arrival of the new minister, new methods for increasing the efficiency of managing people and business processes, adopted in the corporate sector, began to be introduced.
Thus, mandatory Sunday business training and games were organized for deputy ministers. As the number of deputies decreased, department heads began to replace them. Maxim Oreshkin on his Facebook page on September 19 called this work “on the formation of a corporate culture.”
Another slide, which the minister did not publish, but which was shared with Gazeta.Ru by the participants in that game, lists several goals in the following order: “Increasing income of the population”; "Employee training"; “Virtualization of ministry (transition to ED)” (spelling of the original source - “Gazeta.Ru”); “Creating really working conditions for personal, professional, career growth”; “Providing the necessary working conditions (salary and labor standards) to stop the outflow of personnel and attract highly qualified specialists”; “Improving the image of the Ministry of Economic Development”; “Increasing employee engagement” and “Developing new approaches to material and non-material motivation of employees.”
According to sources, the Ministry of Economic Development hired Efficiency Improvement Center LLC, also known as Oleg Zamyshlyaev’s Workshop, to conduct team building.
Sunday's games were inexpensive for the ministry. According to SPARK-Interfax, in 2017, Zamyshlyaev’s company had two government contracts under Federal Law-223 for the amount of 1.69 million rubles and the Federal Budgetary Institution “Treatment and Rehabilitation Center of the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia” for the amount of 120 thousand rubles. The net profit of Masterskaya in 2016 amounted to 3.13 million rubles. with a turnover of 43 million rubles per year.
Maxim Oreshkin conducts team building at the ministry’s sanatorium in the village of Voronovo, which is called the Treatment and Rehabilitation Center, officials said. The State Procurement website states that the purchase was carried out “from a single supplier.”
In the company’s advertising brochure, customers are invited to play a game to create the vitamin “Communicacin”, “Sixth Sense”, “Fruit Landing” or transform into inhabitants of the “yet unknown star system Industry”.
It is unknown which game the leaders of the Ministry of Economic Development chose. But from the agreement with the Center for Improving Efficiency it follows that “new trends were studied and corrective actions were taken with respect to long-term directions of development, strategy goals or methods of its implementation in the light of actual experience, changing conditions, new ideas and opportunities.”
New personnel, new salaries
However, the experiment that Maxim Oreshkin is conducting has already been tested in other elements of public administration.
For example, the theme of classes for employees of the VEB state corporation “The Hero’s Path” consists of 10 stages: “Call” and “Refusal of the Call”, “Crossing the Limit”, “Collecting Resources and Allies”, “Meeting with Demons”, “Night of the Soul”, "Gift of Power", "Final Battle with the Dragon" and "Homecoming". I wrote about this in April of this year.
And the RANEPA program for preparing a personnel reserve for the presidential administration for candidates for governor includes diving from a seven-meter cliff, RBC reported on October 9.
Against this background, the Ministry of Economic Development has not surpassed its competitors in introducing new technologies. But the ministry clearly thought about the main element of personnel policy - high positions for “youth” and, accordingly, good pay.
On October 12, Vladimir Putin signed a decree reducing the qualification requirements for the length of service required to fill positions in the state civil service.
This document equated work experience in a specialty to experience in the civil service and reduced the time requirements.
Now a citizen can be hired for the highest position of the federal state civil service if he has 4 years of experience in the civil service or work in a specialized area. Previously, at least 6 years of civil service experience was required. For senior positions, the length of service requirement has been reduced from 4 years to 2 years. The decree was lobbied by the Ministry of Economic Development, a source in the government knows. Otherwise, Maxim Oreshkin would not be able to offer high positions to recruited employees - they require experience.
Another project of the Ministry of Economic Development, which the minister has been lobbying since the spring of this year, concerns the introduction of fixed-term contracts for specialists who will be involved in the implementation of priority projects.
Government degeneration
The completion of the transformation of the Ministry of Economic Development is expected by April. By this time, the current government will be dissolved in connection with the presidential elections and the formation of a new cabinet will begin.
The managerial ideology of the new government has already been proposed by Dmitry Medvedev and developed under the leadership of the deputy chief of staff of the government. We are talking about reformatting the cabinet of ministers into project offices, which, according to tradition, can still bear the previous names of ministries.
The budget for 2018 - 2020 has already identified five priority state programs, which will be managed exclusively by project teams. The former federal target programs, which were the basis of state programs, were abolished by his decision last week before they were transferred to “pilot projects”.
Projects in state programs will be “ranked” according to a limited number of goals (no more than five) and in accordance with the methodology that Maxim Oreshkin was instructed to develop by November 11 of this year.
In this situation, the Ministry of Economic Development in the previous format becomes unnecessary. In its place, the government is waiting for the formation of a new department that can unite all project activities.
The government expects that the current “process” load will be redistributed among other departments. Trade missions and all foreign trade activities may go into . Moreover, this idea was supported by the current first deputy head of the presidential administration back when he was prime minister in 1998.
Also, property and cadastre management agencies - and - can be separated from the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Economic Development. These bodies are capable of existing either independently or outsourcing their powers to state corporations.
The government is going to abandon the previous format of the Ministry of Economic Development not only ideologically and personnel-wise, but also architecturally. The ministry's move is already planned for April. The ministry's old buildings scattered around Moscow's Garden Ring will be sold, a government source says. In June 2017, the current deputy minister of this department, Alexey Gruzdev, already confirmed that the ministry has plans to move to the Moscow City building complex.
Russia again has a minister of economic development. He became 34-year-old Maxim Oreshkin, a former deputy minister of finance who previously worked at VTB and the Central Bank. He considers his main task to be removing barriers to economic growth. The government's youngest minister will take charge in 2017.
What's happened?
Russian President Vladimir Putin has asked Deputy Finance Minister Maxim Oreshkin to take over the post of head of the Ministry of Economic Development, vacated after the arrest of Alexei Ulyukaev.
Oreshkin did not refuse the head of state’s offer. The appointment decree is already .
Deputy Minister of Economic Development Evgeny Elin that the new head of the department will take part in a government meeting on Thursday, December 1.
Who is Maxim Oreshkin?
The youngest minister of the Russian government. Oreshkin is 34 years old, a month younger than the head of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications, Nikolai Nikiforov.
Since March 2015, he worked as Deputy Minister of Finance, and since September 2013 - Director of the Department of Long-Term Strategic Planning of the Ministry of Finance.
Before working for the state, for seven years he held various positions in various financial structures - Rosbank, VTB Capital, Credit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank.
From 2002 to 2006 he worked at the Bank of Russia, which at that time was headed by Sergei Ignatiev.
Master of Economics, graduate of the Higher School of Economics (2004).
What to expect from the new minister?
At the meeting with Vladimir Putin, Maxim Oreshkin’s main task was for the Ministry of Economic Development: in 2017, the department will develop key measures designed to remove barriers to the growth of the Russian economy.
“The worst is over, but the growth rate is, of course, insufficient. Therefore, the main task for the coming year is to prepare key measures that will remove structural barriers to the growth of the Russian economy,” Oreshkin said in a conversation with the head of state. “There are a lot of restrictions, we’ll just start working now.”
“Maxim Stanislavovich, you are quite a young man, but you can no longer be called a young specialist. You are a competent, mature, experienced person. I wish you good luck,” the president admonished him.
At the end of October, the Ministry of Economic Development, still headed by Ulyukaev, also set the main goal of its work: improving the quality of life of Russians.
Photo: Mikhail Klimentyev / RIA Novosti
What do you remember about Oreshkin?
Two months before his arrest, Alexey Ulyukaev entered into an affair with Maxim Oreshkin.
“No, I don’t agree. This is not the Ministry of Finance, this is one of the employees of the Ministry of Finance, who has some authority in such statements,” Ulyukaev commented on Oreshkin’s forecast that in the coming years the price of oil could drop to $30 per barrel.
Oreshkin also proposed changing the formula for calculating the mineral extraction tax (MET) in order to withdraw “extra” profits from the devaluation of the ruble from oil workers. The oil lobby managed to repel the onslaught of the Ministry of Finance, thanks in no small part to the Ministry of Economic Development. “I believe that the tax burden on the industry is quite large, however, it changes too often, which creates uncertainty for investors,” Ulyukaev said, calling the Ministry of Finance’s ideas “not the best solution” (quote from).
The new Minister of Economic Development also actively advocated the privatization of Rosneft. In August 2016, he warned that if it was not possible to sell off state assets, the Reserve Fund would quickly dry up.
Unlike his predecessor, Oreshkin prefers to look not for the bottom of the economy, but for it.
Big package of resignations
The appointment of Maxim Oreshkin as Minister of Economic Development will be followed by new personnel decisions, in a conversation with Lenta.ru, vice-president of the Russian Public Relations Association, political scientist Evgeny Minchenko.
“The likelihood that there will be a large package of resignations and appointments is quite high,” the expert said and clarified that the reshuffle will most likely occur after the president’s message to the Federal Assembly (scheduled for December 1).
Minchenko also said that Oreshkin, chosen to replace Ulyukaev, “is a figure like [Anton] Vaino,” who recently headed the presidential administration, or Dmitry Ovsyannikov, who replaced the post of deputy minister of industry with the post of acting governor of Sevastopol.
The head of the Association of Russian Banks, Garegin Tosunyan, is glad that a young man has become the new minister. “I accept with joy that a young man has headed the ministry, because although experience is a very significant factor for management, for wisdom and foresight, youth can quickly make up for shortcomings. Secondly, when such responsibility falls on young shoulders, then every effort is made to justify the trust,” he told the National News Service (NSN).
Associate Professor of the Department of Financial Markets and Financial Engineering at RANEPA Sergei Khestanov, in turn, called Oreshkin’s appointment quite logical.
“But I would say that the role of the Ministry of Economic Development is generally relatively small in making important decisions compared to other departments. The ministry plays rather the role of an advisory body,” he concluded.
On the night of November 15, 2016, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation announced that the Minister of Economic Development Alexey Ulyukaev received a bribe of two million dollars.
According to the investigation, Ulyukaev illegally demanded money from a representative of PJSC NK Rosneft as a bribe for the legal issuance of a positive conclusion and assessment in relation to the transaction for the acquisition by PJSC NK Rosneft of a state stake in PJSC ANK Bashneft. At the same time, he made threats, using his official powers, to create further obstacles to the company’s activities. The head of the Ministry of Economic Development was detained after an appeal from representatives of Rosneft.
Investigators of the Main Directorate for Investigation of Particularly Important Cases of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation charged Alexey Ulyukaev with committing a crime (receiving a bribe by a person holding a public position in the Russian Federation, with extortion of a bribe and on an especially large scale).
Interrogation of Alexey Ulyukaev at the Investigative Committee. During interrogation, he refused to admit his guilt.
The Investigative Committee noted that Ulyukaev’s guilt in taking a bribe is confirmed by “specific marks on his fingers,” and also stated the presence of audio and video recordings.
According to the press secretary of the head of state, Dmitry Peskov, operational development regarding Ulyukaev, Russian President Vladimir Putin was aware of what was happening from the very beginning, received all the information on this case and exchanged data with the head of government Dmitry Medvedev.
Russian President Vladimir Putin in connection with the loss of confidence.
Later, his arrest was extended. At the same time, the ex-minister himself asked the court to choose another, milder measure of restraint. He said that he suffers from atherosclerosis, hypertension and other diseases related to the vascular system. The defense insisted on allowing walks, and later announced the need for hospitalization of the former head of the Ministry of Economic Development.
Currently, the former head of the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, Alexei Ulyukaev, is under house arrest.
On January 11, 2017, it became known that the Basmanny Court of Moscow seized more than one million dollars and 280 million rubles in the bank accounts of ex-Minister of Economic Development Alexei Ulyukaev. The ex-minister’s gold coins were also seized, each of which costs from 13 thousand to more than 6 million rubles. Previously, the Basmanny court on ten land plots and a residential building owned by Ulyukaev in the Smolensk region.
