Oleg Mitvol, once vice-president of Rosprirodnadzor and previously the head of Moscow’s Northern Administrative District, was detained at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport on June 10. This detail was shared with socialbites.ca by his assistant, Inga Shlenskaya. According to her, Mitvol was taken into custody by the FSB in the Krasnoyarsk Territory.
“He is on a planned family vacation in Turkey,” Mitvol’s representative said, adding that authorities are examining whether Krasnoyarsk TISIZ JSC carried out design work under a signed state contract. Mitvol is cooperating with law enforcement.
In a separate conversation with RIA Novosti, Shlenskaya remarked that there have been no charges filed against Mitvol. “It’s still in the preliminary discussion stage… until the case details are clear,” she noted.
Earlier, a source within the agency indicated that the former official was detained on June 8.
Mitvol’s mother believes her son did not commit the alleged crimes, according to a REN TV channel source. “There was no need for him to steal. He was handling a heavy workload,” she told the channel’s interlocutor.
The former Rosprirodnadzor executive faces suspicions of embezzling roughly 900 million rubles. A criminal case has been opened under the article for fraud committed on a particularly large scale, and Mitvol could face up to ten years in prison.
The Krasnoyarsk court ordered Mitvol to be kept in detention as a preventive measure until July 24, 2022, according to TASS.
In Krasnoyarsk, planners once debated a metro project dating back to the 1960s. Construction did not actually begin until 1995 and continued through 2009. RIA Novosti notes that in 2018 regional authorities discussed modernizing the plan, with 1 billion rubles allocated from the federal budget to move the project forward. Interfax added that these funds were directed to arrange the first metro line.
Investigators allege that Mitvol oversaw a fraudulent scheme. In 2019, the Krasnoyarsk Regional Transport Administration signed a contract with Krasnoyarsk TISIZ, the JSC for Engineering and Construction Surveys, where Mitvol held the chair position since 2018.
According to investigators, Krasnoyarsk TISIZ was supposed to conduct a comprehensive assessment of natural conditions and the man-made factors affecting the construction sites. The company reportedly received about 954 million rubles for the work, but law enforcement contends that the project was only partially completed.
In 2019, the estimated cost for the first stage of the metro project stood at 64 billion rubles. By 2021, Krasnoyarsk TISIZ demanded an additional 152.9 million rubles for “additional research.” This development led to a forensic construction expertise investigation that began in February of the current year. June 10 was slated for a final update, with a June 22 announcement anticipated according to the Mash Telegram channel.
Following the start of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, Mitvol stated that work on the project would continue, albeit with concern over construction material prices. He emphasized that the project relied on technologies native to Russia. He pointed out that Moscow’s metro stations were built in the 1940s under challenging wartime conditions.
The Krasnoyarsk metro’s construction plan envisions two stages: the first would include six stations spanning from the Oktyabrsky district to the city center near the Strelka, and the second phase would add three more stations extending to the Sovetsky district around the park dedicated to Krasnoyarsk’s 400th anniversary. The entire line is planned to stretch about 12.65 kilometers.
TASS reported that Krasnoyarsk authorities decided to secure a federal infrastructure loan of 89 billion rubles for the project earlier this year.
Officials had previously indicated that the metro might be completed by 2025. Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin spoke about this in July 2021, noting that the project had not yet reached finalization and that a new technical task would be issued within two weeks to reduce costs. He also suggested that with well-coordinated work the project could potentially be finished before 2024.
Krasnoyarsk TISIZ, citing Krasnoyarsk Region Transport Minister Konstantin Dimitrov, asserted that the metro’s design work would proceed even after Mitvol’s arrest and that the timing would not be affected.