At the Moscow Meshchansky Court, significant figures linked to the Tractor Plants Concern (KTZ) machinery manufacturing holding faced verdicts for serious financial crimes. The proceedings named Mikhail Shkolnik, who served as the deputy director of economics and corporate finance, along with Irina Vostorgina, former head of the treasury, as central actors in a high-profile embezzlement case. The court determined that Shkolnik would serve a four-year prison term, while Vostorgina received a three-and-a-half-year sentence. In addition to their custodial penalties, both were assessed fines amounting to four hundred thousand rubles for Shkolnik and three hundred fifty thousand rubles for Vostorgina. A pivotal aspect of the ruling was the substitution of the actual prison terms with conditional sentences, a move aligned with the prosecutors’ position that they should face six years of imprisonment and a total fine of one million rubles were the courts to apply the full sanction. The difference between the actual sentence and the prosecutor’s request underscores the court’s discretion in applying conditional liberty for individuals implicated in large-scale corporate misappropriation.
Earlier, in early November 2022, the same Moscow court delivered another significant decision tied to the same corporate group. Mikhail Bolotin, founder and former chairman of KTZ, was sentenced to two years in a penal colony on charges connected to embezzling approximately 90 million rubles from the state budget. Bolotin opted to plead guilty and entered into a pre-trial agreement with the Office of the Attorney General, which permitted the case to be resolved in a private manner. Although the court formally ordered a custodial term, Bolotin spent a substantial portion of that time in pretrial detention and was released after roughly four months. The case illustrates how agreements and timing can influence the practical outcomes of sentences in high-profile financial offenses involving state-ordered defense projects.
Investigations and subsequent analyses noted that the defense sector project portfolio, spread across 2014 and 2015, included substantial funding from the Ministry of Defense under the state defense order aimed at developing prototypes of armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles codenamed Kurganets. The research highlighted a troubling pattern: while the state allocated 5.2 billion rubles toward legitimate research and development initiatives, investigators traced a portion of those funds—specifically about ninety million rubles—having been redirected as loans to a separate entity connected to the management circle within the concern. The findings raise questions about governance controls within the defense procurement ecosystem and the mechanisms for monitoring the flow and use of capital earmarked for national security equipment. These insights illuminate how public funds intended for essential defense technology can converge with private sector arrangements, with consequences that reach into the courts and corporate leadership ranks.
In a broader development, there were reports of another arrest linked to arms and explosives charges, involving a Belarusian national who was taken into custody in Moscow. The incident appears to be part of ongoing enforcement activity in related areas, highlighting the cross-border dimensions of compliance and security enforcement in high-stakes markets where defense-related manufacturing intersects with international mobility and regulatory oversight. The sequence of events underscores the persistent vigilance of authorities around the handling of sensitive materials and the accountability structures that govern complex industrial groups operating at the intersection of state defense orders and private enterprise.