The Gagarinsky District Court of Moscow sentenced the former managing director of Rusnano Andrei Kushnarev to nine years in a general regime colony in the case of embezzlement of more than 7.5 billion rubles, Interfax reports with reference to the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation. In addition, he was given a fine of 76 million rubles and was prohibited from engaging in activities related to the management of commercial organizations for two and a half years.
The court also fully satisfied the civil claim of Rusnano against Kushnarev for 7.5 billion rubles. According to the prosecution, from April 2013 to March 2021, Kushnarev, who worked as the managing director for investment activities of Rusnano and then as the general director of Crocus Nanoelectronics, together with other persons, squandered funds allocated for a project to create in Russia the production of magnetoresistive RAM MRAM.
The Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation claims that the defendants initially did not intend to ensure the creation of a new production and knew that the project would not actually be implemented.
Kommersant previously reported that the prosecution asked to sentence Kushnarev to nine years and ten months in prison – almost the maximum term under the article on especially large embezzlement. The publication also wrote that the investigation considers him an accomplice of the former deputy chairman of the board of Rusnano, Yuri Udaltsov, who is on the international wanted list.
The Crocus project was approved by Rusnano in 2011 and envisaged the creation of production of non-volatile MRAM memory. According to Kommersant, almost 12 billion rubles were invested in it, but production was never launched. In July, the Moscow Arbitration Court partially satisfied a separate claim by Rusnano for damages for this project. Among the defendants were Kushnarev, Udaltsov, former head of the company Anatoly Chubais and other former top managers.