Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said he does not comment on this topic.
At the end of August, about Putin’s role in Yakunin’s resignation. According to him, the reason for Yakunin’s resignation could be his position on subsidies for Russian Railways. “Given the current difficult situation with income, everyone realized that Russian Railways is becoming narrower systemic problem budget: Russian Railways is the only state-owned company that is so heavily hooked on state subsidies,” explained the newspaper’s interlocutor.
According to him, turning point Yakunin's resignation became his next request for subsidies for Russian Railways. The source said that at one of the meetings Yakunin “was asked to cut costs, he began to be indignant in response, said that he could not cut and would leave in that case.” “The president himself was already tired of this and said: “Well, go away,” said Vedomosti’s interlocutor. An RBC source close to Yakunin then questioned the newspaper’s version.
As RBC wrote, during the 12 years of Vladimir Yakunin’s work at Russian Railways, his son Andrei Yakunin became a major entrepreneur - his fund VIY Management (VIYM). One of VIYM’s assets is the Regional Hotel Network (RGS), whose business is closely connected with Russian Railways, Reuters wrote back in 2012. In 2009, Yakunin’s structures agreed with the Rezidor company on a joint project to create a chain of hotels in Russian regions. The investment volume was supposed to be $500 million, the network was supposed to include 20 hotels. The premises for most of the hotels, located near the central city stations, were found by the RGS subsidiary of Russian Railways, Zheldoripoteka, which was created for the construction and distribution of housing among Russian Railways employees. The fact of cooperation with Zheldoripoteka was confirmed to Reuters by Andrei Yakunin himself.
The RVM Capital fund, created within the structures of Russian Railways and which controlled part of the former non-core assets of the state monopoly, also invested in the construction of hotels. One of the shareholders of RVM Capital is NPF Blagosostoyanie, which services pension accounts of Russian Railways. Details of the transactions were not disclosed.
Another business of Andrei Yakunin associated with Russian Railways is the Far East Land Bridge company, Reuters wrote in its investigation. This logistics company created a joint venture with the subsidiary company of Russian Railways TransContainer, which was supposed to specialize in transporting goods along the land route between Europe and Asia. Subsequently, TransContainer sold its stake to RZD Logistics.
Now Andrei Yakunin, as the head of Russian Railways said in an interview with Gazeta.Ru in 2014, lives in London.
With the participation of Peter Kiryan and Mikhail Rubin
Unknown Internet saboteurs have achieved perhaps the most resounding success in the field of political disinformation in Russia.
Information explosion
At 20:06 on June 19, 2013, with reference to the press service of the Russian government, RIA Novosti distributed a message about the resignation of the head of Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin. It was also reported that his place was taken by his 1st deputy Alexander Misharin.
It often happens that the media wait for confirmation of sensational news, fearing the unreliability of the source. But this time, almost everyone believed in Yakunin’s resignation—leading federal television channels rushed to report the resignation of one of the most famous and influential representatives of Vladimir Putin’s circle from his post.
Political scientists managed to comment on this personnel decision, considering Yakunin’s resignation to be a continuation of the struggle of political groups hidden from prying eyes.
Political scientist Dmitry Oreshkin told the Kommersant FM radio station that Vladimir Yakunin himself is an independent figure, but influential people are against him. “Medvedev’s team tried to eliminate Yakunin, but this could only be done through Putin. This means that Putin gave the go-ahead for resignation,” Oreshkin said at a time when resignation was still considered real.
Officials approached by the media for comment were completely at a loss. At 20:30 assistant to the head of Russian Railways Alexander Pirkov told a Forbes correspondent that Yakunin is currently at a meeting with Putin, and the news about his resignation is fake.
Following this, other media began to publish refutations of the sensation. According to RIA Novosti, “Around 20:00 Moscow time on Wednesday, a message was sent to a number of media outlets, designed like a government press release and containing elements traditional for such documents, which contained information about the resignation of Yakunin and the appointment of Misharin.” Additional verification showed that the IP address from which the press release came did not match the address of the government apparatus.
Yakunin and the wood grouse
However, experts note that this disinformation was prepared and carried out at an extremely high professional level.
The press secretary of the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation had a slightly different view of the situation. Dmitry Medvedev Natalia Timakova. “No one hacked the “boxes” of the government press service, the news was fake, it contained grammatical errors and came from just a similar address, and our agencies fell for it,” Timakova told Forbes.
At the same time, Medvedev’s press secretary said that the FSO and FSB were involved in checking this incident, which were given the command to detect the authors of the information hoax.
The complete reliability of electronic newsletters, obviously, cannot be guaranteed by the Kremlin press service, which, in an appeal published on the official Kremlin website, asked the media to confirm the materials appearing in the electronic newsletter with a telephone call.
Vladimir Yakunin himself, at least outwardly, remained absolutely calm in this situation. According to him, the news of the resignation caught the head of Russian Railways at a meeting between President Putin and businessmen. At this moment, those present were eating wood grouse. According to Yakunin’s story, the president also remained calm. “What happiness has befallen you,” Putin said to the head of Russian Railways.
Yakunin did not give further comments on the situation, since “he does not react to the inscriptions on the fence.”
The head of Russian Railways, Vladimir Yakunin, is considered one of the members of President Putin’s “inner circle”, and at the same time one of the most “closed” figures in Russian politics. Informed sources believe that Yakunin is one of the possible candidates for the post of head of government in the event of the resignation of Dmitry Medvedev.
It is possible that such promising positions of Yakunin haunt his political opponents, who are trying to weaken their competitor by any means.
The current head of Russian Railways in 1996, together with Vladimir Putin, became one of the co-founders of the Ozero dacha cooperative, whose members, during Putin’s presidency, advanced to leading positions in politics and business.
In 2003, Yakunin became the first vice president of Russian Railways, and in 2005 he headed the company.
“Enemy” of passengers and motorists
Yakunin's activities in this position are assessed rather controversially. The head of Russian Railways himself recently said in an interview with Interfax that most of the reproaches against Russian Railways are unfounded, they reflect only the interests of individuals and do not contain answers to conceptual questions. The company's problems, according to Yakunin, are related to the general state of the Russian economy.
Yakunin is extremely unloved among those who regularly use the services of passenger trains and electric trains. According to many, in pursuit of the implementation of ambitious projects of high-speed trains such as Sapsan, Russian Railways pays little attention to the quality of regular transportation.
Yakunin himself has repeatedly stated that passenger transportation is unprofitable. During Yakunin's leadership, Russian Railways constantly conflicts with regional authorities, demanding compensation for the cost of suburban transportation. More than once, Russian Railways has threatened to reduce and even completely stop the movement of commuter electric trains in the regions if local authorities do not fulfill their financial obligations.
Apparently, in order to increase the profitability of suburban passenger service, in the Moscow region, during the leadership of Yakunin, Russian Railways OJSC turned most electric train stations into impregnable fortresses for free riders, and passengers with tickets are “tightly stuck” in “traffic jams” at the turnstiles at the entrance and exit to station.
Motorists also send “warm greetings” to Yakunin - during his leadership of Russian Railways, an active process of closing railway crossings began, as a result of which the problem of traffic jams on those that still survived became one of the most acute.
“Single-track” and Dorenko
Vladimir Yakunin's record as head of Russian Railways includes several strange statements that were later disavowed. In July 2009, Yakunin signed an order to rename the capital's Leningradsky station to Nikolaevsky to comply with the principle of “historicism and continuity.” This decision was warmly supported by a few lovers of Russian antiquity and the same few supporters of monarchism, but the majority, to put it mildly, did not appreciate such a decision. As a result, it was declared a “technical error” and disavowed four hours later.
In October 2012, Yakunin, at a retreat on a “literary train” moving along the Small Ring of the Moscow Railway, called “single-track” one of the difficulties in reconstructing this road for passenger traffic. Meanwhile, from the very moment of its construction in 1908, the Small Ring had two main routes. Why Yakunin didn’t know this or why Yakunin forgot about it is unknown, but at the moment when he spoke about “single-track” to the president, the presence of two tracks was obvious to anyone who looked out of the window of the train in which the meeting was taking place.
In January 2013, famous television journalist Sergei Dorenko live radio station RSN said: “Everyone is thinking, “Who’s behind Serdyukov?” I answer - Yakunin. Because turning a profitable company into a loss-making one is not easy. To do this, we need to somehow transfer assets to subsidiaries, give away profitable contracts to all sorts of left-field companies - a lot of work.” In response to this statement. The case is being considered by the Khoroshevsky Court of Moscow, but the judicial authorities have never managed to get the journalist to attend court hearings.
As a result, just a few hours before the information about Yakunin’s resignation was leaked, the senior precinct commissioner of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Khoroshevo-Mnevniki district, police captain, appeared in the studio of the RSN radio station during the broadcast. Andrey Levchuk, who handed the summons to the elusive journalist. “Yakunin? Who is this? Don’t you know what happened to the honor and dignity of Vladimir Ivanovich? Has honor and dignity somehow gone bad? Do not know? I just don't know. “But I thought he was fine,” Dorenko asked on air, to which the policeman got off with a brief remark that his job was to serve a summons.
The journalist himself, despite having received a summons, is not going to appear in court on July 1 at 11:00, explaining this by being busy at work.
Estate near Moscow
However, the most important scandal of recent times, in which the name of the head of Russian Railways was mentioned, is connected not with Dorenko, but with a huge country house, which presumably belongs to Vladimir Yakunin.
Information about the luxurious mansion of the head of Russian Railways appeared on the Internet before, but details began to emerge after blogger Alexei Navalny published a post by a certain person who, according to him, worked at Yakunin’s dacha. After the publication of Navalny’s blog, many representatives of the Internet community began the “hunt” for “Yakunin’s property,” posting photographs of the supposed “estate of the head of Russian Railways” on the Internet.
According to unofficial information, the “dacha” occupies about 70 hectares in a forest area near Domodedovo, on the site there are specially dug artificial lakes, a garage for 15 cars, a network of underground passages from the house to the garage, stretching for one and a half kilometers, and a special fur storage facility. On the estate, in addition to the main mansion, which has all the high-tech functions " smart home", There is two-storey house for servants, 50-meter swimming pool, bathhouse for 1400 square meters and many many others.
According to Novaya Gazeta, the current owner of the land and the houses located on it is the Cypriot company Mirolo Investments Ltd. The Cypriot company acquired the rights to this site on February 25, 2011, and the previous owner of the land was the head of Russian Railways, Vladimir Yakunin.
However, further analysis of the connections of the Cyprus offshore company allowed “ Novaya Gazeta"Discover that she is directly related to companies that are controlled by two sons of Vladimir Yakunin - Andrei and Victor.
Despite all the clandestine nature of the Moscow region object, it is worth remembering that according to the current legislation, Vladimir Yakunin, by his status, is neither a civil servant nor the head of a state corporation and, therefore, is not obliged to publicly report either his income and expenses, or the income and expenses of family members .
The message that appeared on Wednesday evening about the dismissal from the post of president of the Russian Federation turned into a loud scandal. railways". Within half an hour after the news of the resignation was published in news agencies' feeds, they had to transmit refutations. The news about the resignation of the head of Russian Railways, as it turned out, was sent out on behalf of the government press service, but from a different IP address. Either without receiving a sufficient number of refutations , or assuming that Yakunin’s resignation is still being prepared, quite a few Russian citizens They were convinced that the scandalous information was not “fake”.
On June 19, around 20:00, news agencies and all leading media outlets managed to report, citing the government press service, that Dmitry Medvedev dismissed Vladimir Yakunin from his post at the latter’s request and appointed Alexander Misharin in his place.
When the sensational news appeared, Vladimir Yakunin was having dinner with Vladimir Putin, and this “news” did not spoil the appetite of either of them, Forbes notes. “We sat and ate wood grouse,” Yakunin said. Putin briefly commented on the news: “He said: what happiness has befallen you.”
But he seemed to believe the news former governor Sverdlovsk region, first vice-president of Russian Railways and “appointed” to replace Yakunin, Alexander Misharin, who was caught by the news at Sapsan. According to a Forbes source close to Yakunin, Alexander Misharin “almost jumped out the window” when he learned about the boss’s false resignation. “Yes, you can congratulate me. Sorry, I’m on the train now, the connection may be lost,” he told UralPolit.ru.
Not only journalists, but also government officials received Yakunin’s resignation document through an internal mailing, a source in the White House told Kommersant. “But, to be honest, he immediately aroused suspicion. If it is possible to remove the head of Russian Railways OJSC overnight, then immediately appoint a new one, without any consultations, is at least strange,” the publication’s interlocutor noted.
Not understanding why the railroad needs so much money for such a low quality of shameful service, these same people are fleeing en masse from the controllers! Then Russian Railways tells the locals: “My expenses have increased. We need fences, barriers, turnstiles, security, controllers, platform inspectors... Pay more!” And they get paid again: X+U+another letter, according to your choice according to your upbringing. But since the price is even higher, there are even more “hares”! The budget begins to pay losses, that is, in fact, all residents, including “hares,” pay the railway! So there is no point in trying and achieving real profit for Russian Railways. Law and government regulations completely protect this monopolist from losses. If something happens, you can always reach into your pockets. Even if you don't travel at all commuter trains. Even if you are a "hare".
Everything fell into place when, half an hour after the news appeared on the feeds of federal news agencies, which received the mailing allegedly from the government press service, denials began to arrive from the very top, writes NEWSru.com. Firstly, Yakunin himself said that the news caught him having dinner with Vladimir Putin (according to the charter of Russian Railways, the interests of the shareholder - the Russian Federation - in Russian Railways are carried out by the government, all JSCs are subordinate to it, but in fact, as experts previously noted, the president of Russian Railways can be fired “only through Putin,” his longtime friend and neighbor in the Ozero cooperative).
Then the information about Yakunin’s resignation was denied by the press secretary of Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, and the press service of Russian Railways. Everyone, as one, declared that the news was “fake” - this was the description given to it by the Prime Minister’s representative Natalya Timakova.
Hackers gave away IP address and grammatical errors
It is unlikely that what happened was a banal joke - the mysterious authors of the sensation were too scrupulous in presenting information. They not only framed the message in the “corporate” style of the government press service. But they even forged the sender's address: in the properties of the fake electronic document it is indicated that it was created on June 18 at 13:25, the author of the document is def_usr - the same author of real government press releases, Vedomosti notes. At the same time, the authors of the message made a typo: in the phrase that Yakunin was fired due to at will, they missed the preposition “by” - either they made a mistake in a hurry, or they were “trolling” the news agencies, actually immediately giving them a hint that the letter was fake.
However, this was soon established for sure. The IT service of RIA Novosti found out that the message came from an IP address that did not match the address of the government press service. And soon experts figured out that this IP belongs to the company ZAO Pervy and is registered in Irkutsk.
“This is a provocation of such a scale that it should be dealt with by the relevant authorities,” Yakunin said. The authorities are already involved - as the prime minister's press secretary said, the FSO and FSB have joined the investigation. Checks are also carried out in the government apparatus. Meanwhile, the Kremlin is calling on journalists to double-check the information they receive. “In connection with the increasing occurrence of cybercrime, the press service and information department of the President of Russia proposes to all media outlets to exercise maximum caution in using information received via the Internet,” says a message on the Kremlin website. They urge you to check information by calling press services.
By the way, there are no comments regarding Yakunin’s false resignation on the president’s website, and by Thursday morning it had not appeared on the government’s website, although Yakunin’s assistant Alexander Pirkov assured late on Wednesday evening that an official refutation had been published on the government’s website.
“If this resignation has not happened now, then I think it is not far off.”
The announcement of the resignation of the head of Russian Railways, which was declared a provocation, apparently was not just a bad joke by Internet users, observers believe, analyzing the details of this story. Thus, political scientist Dmitry Oreshkin, commenting on the resignation of the Kommersant FM radio station at a time when no one doubted the veracity of the message, expressed the opinion that Vladimir Yakunin himself was an independent figure, but influential people opposed him. “Medvedev’s team tried to eliminate Yakunin, but this could only be done through Putin. This means that Putin gave the go-ahead for his resignation,” the expert noted.
The fact that rail transportation in Russia is unprofitable for the monopolist Russian Railways has been known for a long time. But this is no less strange, given two basic facts: the occupancy of trains in Russia is close to the occupancy of cinemas on Avatar, and regularly rising prices for coupes in many directions are already inferior to air travel. Of course, there are cash cows both on passenger routes and on Russian Railways. The express service to Domodedovo airport sets profitability records, and Aeroexpress services to all other airports are not far behind. On the other hand, it is not customary for us to pay even a much lower ticket price for commuter trains. The economic efficiency and payback of expensive Sapsan high-speed trains also remains in question. In general, the fact of unprofitability remains a fact.
Oreshkin rather vaguely explained the reason for Yakunin’s resignation, noting only that Putin had complaints against the head of Russian Railways: “He started his game, tried to turn Putin to the left, in the end Yakunin, having lost patience, did something himself. Putin did not tolerate this.” .
Having learned that the message was a fake, Oreshkin noted that he did not yet have a version of why this happened: “It is impossible to explain yet, one can only assume, and very carefully. Yakunin is the most closed of the members of the Ozero cooperative. He is perhaps the most hard".
Yakunin's pseudo-resignation prompted experts to speak out about whether the chair under the Russian Railways president was swaying. “If this resignation has not happened now, then I think it is not far off,” said Evgeniy Minchenko, director of the International Institute of Political Expertise. “The money being invested in Russian Railways is quite serious, there is no big breakthrough, but there is a lot of strange political activity, plus recently there has been a serious lobbying fight around the construction of high-speed lines. The main lobbyist for this topic was Mr. Misharin, who is now called Yakunin’s successor,” - Minchenko noted.
Why was Yakunin's resignation expected?
Either having not received a sufficient number of refutations, or assuming that Yakunin’s resignation was still being prepared, quite a few Russian citizens became convinced that the scandalous information was not “fake” at all. Blogs have already started saying that Yakunin was indeed fired, but allegedly managed to “run” to Putin and talked himself out of being fired. Alexei Navalny writes about this in particular: “There is no system of personnel decisions, there is no responsibility for the highest authorities. There is treadmill between offices."
The trust of the country's residents in the authorities is such that the active classes of society were not ready to believe them, notes The Financial Times.
In addition, the fact that recently the authorities may have had complaints against Yakunin played a role. Gazeta.ru's interlocutors, close to the government and the presidential administration, believe that the question of Yakunin's resignation is completely predetermined: he will allegedly leave the post of head of Russian Railways within the next few days.
Rumors that Yakunin’s departure from Russian Railways is inevitable, representatives political elites We started discussing it six months ago. They became more active after the publication of a report by the Center for Problem Analysis and Public Management Design, whose expert group is headed by Yakunin. The report, in particular, said that the real winner of the Duma elections in 2011 was the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, and admitted that the election results were falsified.
Finally, a few weeks ago, information about Yakunin’s “super dacha” with a fur storage facility, blocked approaches to the river and a huge prayer room with icons in gold frames spread across the blogosphere at the instigation of Navalny. Many representatives of the political elite considered this publication a “black mark” for Yakunin, recalling Vladimir Pekhtin, Gazeta.ru notes. The publication's source familiar with the situation names the main beneficiary of Yakunin's resignation as one of the representatives of the Kremlin "siloviki" - the head of the Rostec state corporation Sergei Chemezov, as well as the general director of the Uralvagonzavod corporation Oleg Sienko - who was previously expected to become the head of Russian Railways - and the owner of the Novolipetsk Metallurgical Plant billionaire Vladimir Lisin.
“This can also be understood this way, for example, that as a result of some apparatus struggle between the Kremlin and the White House, an exchange of the resignation of Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich for the resignation of the head of Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin was agreed upon,” says political scientist Alexander Morozov. “Here we have daily messages that Dvorkovich is about to resign, that Putin doesn’t like him, on the sidelines they say that Putin has already stamped his feet and demanded that Medvedev fire him, otherwise Putin will fire him with his own decision over Medvedev’s head. Perhaps they have reached an agreement "that yes, Dvorkovich is leaving, but Yakunin is also leaving. I have a feeling that we have to wait. Maybe tomorrow both Dvorkovich and Yakunin will be dismissed, then it will become clear where the leak came from."
Rumors have been circulating for quite some time that Yakunin is disliked by Medvedev’s team. However, the industry does not confirm this information. “A complete surprise for me and not only for me,” the head of a large railway company commented on the information to Forbes. “Of the known conflicts between Yakunin and Medvedev, there was only one - two years ago, when Medvedev arrived at the Kyiv station without warning and gave the head of Russian Railways a beating.” The interlocutor suggested that if Yakunin’s resignation could happen, it would not be before the end of the Sochi Olympics in 2014.
The head of Russian Railways himself is not going to go anywhere, and now thanks everyone who supported him in difficult times. “Dear friends, colleagues and readers of my magazine! I just want to tell you: “Thank you.” Never in my life have I received so many calls and SMS with words, first of sympathy and support, and then of indignation at the blatant provocation regarding my alleged resignation ", wrote the head of Russian Railways in his blog.
Mastak | 02:20 | 0 comments
Information about the resignation of the head of Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin, which was distributed by news agencies, turned out to be fake. This was reported by the Prime Minister's press secretary Natalya Timakova. However, experts believe that there is no smoke without fire..
The resignation of the head of Russian Railways, Vladimir Yakunin, was reported on Wednesday evening by leading Russian media, including TV channels. The point was that Prime Minister Medvedev fired Yakunin and appointed Alexander Misharin instead.
Later, RIA Novosti clarified that the government message was allegedly sent from someone else’s IP address.
40 minutes after the first reports about Yakunin’s resignation appeared, the prime minister’s press secretary, Natalya Timakova, commented on the event: according to her, the message distributed by news agencies contained grammatical errors.
The news of the resignation appeared with the lightning mark at 20:06.
Literally a quarter of an hour later a second message arrived: the White House press service did not confirm the fact of the mailing. The telephone numbers of the presidential press secretary, the head of government and the president of Russian Railways were not answered at this time. Half an hour later, a new lightning appeared: the IP address with the message about personnel changes did not match the address of the government.
Immediately after, Yakunin’s press service issued a refutation of the information about the resignation. And after it came a comment from Medvedev’s press secretary Natalya Timakova.
The message about the resignation of Vladimir Yakunin was also denied by the press service of Russian Railways. Federal security and safety services will look for the source of disinformation.
Misharin was ready to accept congratulations
The message, which unknown persons on behalf of the government sent to news agencies, also mentioned that the vice-president of the state-owned company, Alexander Misharin, was appointed as the new head of Russian Railways. He oversees the construction of high-speed railways. And recently it became known that President Vladimir Putin agreed to allocate 1 trillion rubles for this construction.
Even before the press service of the government and the railway monopoly denied the news about Yakunin’s dismissal, the FederalPress agency got through to Alexander Misharin, and he confirmed his appointment.
Ural.Polit.Ru editor Alexey Vakhrushev told Business FM how it happened: “I spoke very briefly with Alexander Sergeevich. I asked if it was possible to congratulate him on his appointment as head of Russian Railways, he said: “Yes, it is possible.” I tried to clarify the details, when the decree was signed or this was told to him personally at a meeting with the prime minister, he said: “Sorry, I’m on the train now, the connection may be cut off.” Surprisingly, she broke off immediately. The next three calls were not answered. When RIA Novosti commented that there was a refutation, I dialed it again. He sounded obviously displeased, he had a second line, he said, 'Yes,' and hung up."
It is impossible to resign without the consent of the administration and the president.
The fate of Vladimir Yakunin will clearly be discussed at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, suggests the head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and independent director of Russian Railways Alexander Shokhin.
In an interview with Business FM, he spoke about the procedure for the resignation and appointment of the president of a state corporation such as Russian Railways: “Now, since the St. Petersburg Forum is taking place, and Vladimir Putin has quite a lot of public communication, public questions will probably be addressed to him, including about the fate of Vladimir Yakunin . I think that today, tomorrow or the day after tomorrow we will get a concrete answer whether there is anything behind this or not. I think that if in the next few days a clear answer is given from the lips of the first leader of the state regarding the fate of the president of Russian Railways, including on the eve of the annual meeting of Russian Railways, his anniversary, which coincides with the meeting, then, I think, even his position will be strengthened."
Alexander Shokhin explained: “The government does not appoint a state-owned company or corporation, formally it is Joint-Stock Company- appoints a general meeting, but on the proposal of the main shareholder. At the meeting, the government, as a shareholder, through its representatives, including on the Board of Directors, can recommend general meeting approve the president of the company or release. Many Board members vote by directive because they are professional attorneys rather than independent directors. I am an independent director, and the majority of the Board of Directors, including Kirill Androsov, are professional attorneys. If there is any directive on a personnel issue of this magnitude, then they will vote in the Board of Directors with a recommendation to the meeting of shareholders, and so far there is only one shareholder! Therefore, despite all the formalities, this is a decision of the government, since, according to the Constitution, it manages federal property. In such matters, it is certainly impossible to do without the president’s position. The government cannot dismiss the head of any state-owned company, be it Gazprom, Russian Railways, Rostec, or Rusnano, without the consent of the presidential administration and personally with the president.”
Meanwhile, recently there has been an obvious war against Yakunin information war, the political scientist notes, Chief Editor"Russian Journal" Alexander Morozov. He does not rule out that the fake message could be another attack on the head of Russian Railways.
“If we remember what happened in the last six months, it is clear that Internet resources, and resources connected in one way or another with the Kremlin, in particular Dorenko’s Russian News Service, criticized Yakunin quite harshly, there is even a current case of Yakunin against Dorenko. This is one side. Moreover, Dorenko criticized him not for the dacha, but for the state of affairs in the company itself. If you look at the story with the dacha, it was quite readily picked up by various media. As the story developed, it turned out that the dacha not only cost $75 million, and it was actually registered in some Panamanian offshore companies, along the way it turned out that both of Yakunin’s sons were involved in big business, and it turned out that their business was under the patronage of their father.”
This is not the first time Yakunin has been subjected to an information attack, and all of these may be links in the same chain, he believes CEO National Energy Security Foundation Konstantin Simonov: “Yakunin made a number of mistakes that were used by his opponents, and a portion of compromising evidence was added. But this kind of incriminating evidence is posted on many officials, and it is clear that only because of this story, no one in Russia would make a decision to resign the head of a company like Russian Railways, let’s be honest. But it adds some piquancy. It is absolutely clear that all these publications are not accidental. Tension around the head of Russian Railways has been growing since the beginning of the year, the pressure is intensifying, and this stuffing was another stroke of the campaign to fight Yakunin.”
Anton Zhelnov
Final decision to resign Vladimir Yakunin from the post of head of Russian Railways was accepted after his son Andrey submitted an application for British citizenship. Two sources close to Yakunin told Dozhd about this.
“In a situation of war with the West, this was regarded as an act of betrayal,” said one of the interlocutors.
In addition, Vladimir Putin’s dissatisfaction was caused by certificates of “special importance” prepared by the FSB and Federal service on financial monitoring (Rosfinmonitoring). They contained information about the movement of Russian Railways funds.
“The company continued to pump out money even when the president clearly said ‘enough is enough,’” said Dozhd’s interlocutor, adding that some secret documents for companies affiliated with Russian Railways were provided by Western partners.
Among the offshore companies closely related to the activities of the state-owned company, the media have repeatedly mentioned the transport companies Far East Land Bridge and the Regional Hotel Chain, registered in the jurisdiction of Cyprus.
According to RBC and Reuters, both companies were part of the investment fund VIY (Venture Investments & Yield Management LLP) controlled by Andrei Yakunin. The fund is registered in London, where Yakunin Jr. has lived for more than five years.
[Fontanka.Ru, 03/17/2015, “Yakunin threatened with regressive barbarism”: A lecture by Russian Railways President Vladimir Yakunin with the intriguing title “Globalization and Capitalism” was held in the assembly hall of St. Petersburg State University, which is located in the building of the Twelve Collegiums on the Mendeleev Line. Anticipating his speech, a representative of the university informed the teachers and students that their colleague, Doctor of Political Science, head of the department, would now speak to them public policy Faculty of Political Science of Moscow State University and simply “the most famous public figure modern Russia». [...]
“It so happened that my eldest son’s family lives in the UK, and my granddaughter visits good school,” Yakunin unexpectedly opened up. “She told me that they have special classes every month dedicated to warning children about the dangers of information from the Internet. Has anyone done such classes with you?” - Insert K.ru]
Vladimir Yakunin took the resignation painfully. He himself refused the post of senator from the Kaliningrad region, considering it too humiliating. [...]
[RBC news agency, 10/08/2015, “The media linked Yakunin’s resignation with his son’s application for British citizenship”: Vladimir Yakunin himself refused to comment on this information to Dozhd.
An RBC source close to Yakunin responded to Dozhd’s report as follows: “This is nonsense that has no relation to reality.”
Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he does not comment on this topic.
Yakunin resigned as head of Russian Railways in August 2015. He has held the post of president of the company since June 2005. Oleg Belozerov, who previously served as Deputy Minister of Transport, became the new head of Russian Railways. President Putin, commenting on Yakunin’s resignation, then stated that “this is his choice, and every person looks at his future as he sees fit.”
At the end of August, an unnamed federal official told Vedomosti about Putin’s role in Yakunin’s resignation. According to him, the reason for Yakunin’s departure could be his position on subsidies for Russian Railways. “Given the current difficult situation with income, everyone realized that Russian Railways is already becoming a systemic budget problem: Russian Railways is the only state-owned company that is so heavily hooked on state subsidies,” explained the newspaper’s interlocutor.
According to him, the turning point in Yakunin’s resignation was his next request for subsidies for Russian Railways. The source said that at one of the meetings Yakunin “was asked to cut costs, he began to be indignant in response, said that he could not cut and would leave in that case.” “The president himself was already tired of this and said: “Well, go away,” said Vedomosti’s interlocutor. An RBC source close to Yakunin then questioned the newspaper’s version. - Insert K.ru]
The founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), Alexei Navalny, wrote in July 2013 that Vladimir Yakunin and his relatives allegedly built a “giant business empire” using companies registered in offshore companies. Navalny claimed that the Yakunin family, in particular, owns a chain of Regional Hotel Chain hotels located near the station, which is managed by Andrei Yakunin. The politician appealed to the Prosecutor General's Office with a request to verify this information. [...]
On August 17, the then acting governor of the Kaliningrad region Nikolay Tsukanov, who participated in the campaign for the election of the head of the region, proposed nominating Yakunin to the Federation Council and received his consent. However, after his resignation, Yakunin announced that he had decided to resign from the position of senator and focus on expert scientific and social activities. “I believe that only there can a person bring maximum benefit to society, and to himself, when he uses the set of knowledge and experience that is characteristic of him,” he said.
["Vedomosti", 09.16.2015, "Yakunin does not want to become a senator": Last week, RIA Novosti, citing sources in the Federation Council, reported that Yakunin “with a high degree of probability will not receive leadership positions,” although he was previously promised a place Deputy Chairman of the Chamber And Kommersant wrote on Tuesday that Yakunin will be given an office in a “spare” building on Novy Arbat, and not in the main one on Bolshaya Dmitrovka and a non-prestigious Ford company car.
[...] included in Western sanctions lists, Yakunin, as it turned out after his nomination to the Federation Council, has the rank of ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary. - Insert K.ru]
