"From Moscow to Brest ..." there is no place where a thievish contractor would not have found an opportunity to assign the finances allocated for construction. There's no exception even in the harsh Arctic: the Investigative Committee accuses the co-owners of RusAlliance Stroy of fraud in especially large amounts and in money laundering during the construction of the Arctic facilities for the Ministry of Defense.

"... There was every reason to believe that the subcontractor would cope with the task at hand. However, having received the maximum possible advance (80 percent) and not having accounted for the money spent, the company did not fulfill the work." From the statement of "Spetsstroy of Russia".

Dmitry Bushmanov and Alexey Eckert were arrested a year ago, in March 2016. Since then, the materials of the investigation of the case of fraud and theft have grown into dozens of volumes. The company "RusAlliance Stroy" was a subcontractor of the Main Directorate of Engineering Works No. 2 under Spetsstroy of Russia. The task entrusted to MDEW-2 from the military department consisted in the construction of two fixed objects of the radar department and the point of aviation guidance; the location of the objects is Cape Schmidt and Wrangel Island.
Contracts for the construction RusAlliance Stroy received without a tender (as the sole supplier), only on the basis of the decision of the construction project managers in "Spetsstroy". The total volume of the contract was 3.5 billion rubles.

The first thing was a good advance payment, as the contractors apparently believed. Using his connections (Alexey Eckert worked until 2009 in the Defense Ministry, then three years in the administration of Naryan-Mar), they "ensured the adoption of positive decisions." "RusAlliance Stroy" received 2.95 billion rubles in 2014-2015 "without proper verification". Then came the imitation (as the investigation suggests) of a stormy activity: the contractors reported on the conduct of survey, design, construction and installation works "on the erection of certain fragments of ... structures." Money, according to accounts, was spent to pay for supplies of "commodity-material values." In fact, the funds allocated from the defense budget were transferred to the accounts of firms controlled by Bushman and Eckert, and then used to purchase real estate, the Investigative Committee said.

The Moscow City Court granted the petition of the Investigative Committee; consequently, Dmitry Bushmanov and Alexey Eckert will remain in custody until May 17. The prosecution of entrepreneurs was put forward under Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code and Part 4 of Art. 174.1 of the Criminal Code (fraud in a particularly large amount and laundering of stolen money).

RusAlliance had time to launder at least 270 million rubles, Dmitry Bushmanov and Alexey Eckert used the money to buy houses and apartments for themselves, their families and relatives. Today, the property of the "owners of Chukotka" is arrested - real estate objects are likely to be sold in the order of the forthcoming repayment of damage. The preliminary investigation into the case is completed, Eckert and Bushmanov, in accordance with the court's decision, will remain in custody until May.

The case of RusAlliance because of the importance of objects and the extent of thefts is already called "the new Vostochny spaceport". Recall that the decision to restore military infrastructure in the Arctic and build up forces in the Arctic region was adopted by Russian President Vladimir Putin in the fall of 2013. In particular, it was announced about the re-creation of the military base that was idle for 20 years on the Novosibirsk Islands and the construction of 440 military infrastructure facilities. As noted in the Defense Ministry, in 2017, the construction of airfield facilities should be completed in the Arctic, and in 2018 - the deployment of self-sufficient mobile groupings of troops.

Reference

The military base at Cape Schmidt exists since 1954. The new construction started in late 2014.