Three Russian journalists - Kirill Radchenko, Alexander Rastorguev and Orkhan Dzhemal - were killed in the Central African Republic (CAR) on Monday, July 30. The Russians went there to investigate the activities of the “Wagner private military company.” Journalists and activists have collected much information about her bit by bit over the past years. DW presents all the most important things we have learned so far.

What is Wagner PMC

The Wagner Private Military Company or Wagner Group is an unofficial military organization that is not part of the regular armed forces of Russia and has no legal status on its territory. The military units of Wagner PMC numbered at different times and according to various sources from 1,350 to 2,000 people. According to sources in the German newspaper Bild in the Bundeswehr, the total number of mercenaries reaches 2,500 people.

Ruslan Leviev, founder of the activist group Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), which monitors the actions of the Russian military in Syria, clarifies that salaries depend on skills, goals and location of the operation. During training in Russia, according to CIT, the salary ranges from 50 to 80 thousand, during foreign operations - 100-120 thousand, in the case of military operations - 150-200 thousand, in the case of special campaigns or major battles - up to 300 thousand .

Where do mercenaries train?in Russia

The "Wagner Group", according to numerous testimonies, trains at a military base near the Molkino farm in the Krasnodar Territory, directly adjacent to the 10th separate special forces brigade of the GRU of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (military unit 51532). There is no information about other training points.

Losses among mercenaries

Calculating losses among the “soldiers of fortune” is complicated for a number of reasons: the illegal status of the PMC and its fighters, the company’s formal lack of accountability to government agencies, and a non-disclosure agreement. As a result, relatives of the victims often find out about what happened only several weeks later. The Russian Ministry of Defense refuses to record losses among mercenaries.

In October 2017, the SBU provided data on 67 victims who had experience of combat in both the Donbass and Syria. As of December 2017, Fontanka journalists estimated the total number of identified losses since the beginning of mercenaries’ participation in hostilities in Syria at 73, and the CIT team at 101 people.

See also:

• From "spring" to war

  At the beginning of 2011, the Arab Spring reached Syria, but the first peaceful demonstrations were brutally suppressed by the police. Then, starting on March 15, mass protests began to break out throughout the country demanding the resignation of Bashar al-Assad. It was hardly possible to imagine that those events would mark the beginning of a conflict that would drag on for eight long years and claim the lives of almost half a million Syrians.



Syria: 8 years of war and unclear prospects for conflict resolution

Parties to the conflict

After a wave of mass protests swept across the country, Assad began using the army to suppress them. In turn, opponents of the regime were forced to take up arms. National minority groups (for example, Kurds) and Islamist terrorist groups, among which the so-called “Islamic State” stands apart, also entered the conflict.



Syria: 8 years of war and unclear prospects for conflict resolution

"Caliphate" of terrorists

In April 2013, militants of the terrorist organization ISIS, formed from a division of al-Qaeda, entered the civil war in Syria. In June 2014, the group announced it was renaming itself “Islamic State” and proclaimed a “caliphate.” According to some reports, in 2015, the Islamic State controlled about 70 percent of Syria, and the number of militants was 60,000 people.



Syria: 8 years of war and unclear prospects for conflict resolution

Cultural heritage as a target of terrorists

The destruction of the ancient oasis city of Palmyra has become a symbol of the barbaric treatment of cultural heritage sites by IS terrorists. In total, more than 300 archaeological sites have been destroyed since the start of the civil war in Syria. In February 2015, the UN Security Council equated the destruction of objects of historical, cultural and religious value by IS militants to terrorist attacks.



Syria: 8 years of war and unclear prospects for conflict resolution

Migration crisis

According to the UN, 5.3 million Syrians have fled the country over the past seven years. Most of them found refuge in neighboring Turkey (more than 3 million people), Lebanon (over 1 million) and Jordan (almost 700 thousand). But the capacity of these countries to receive refugees was practically exhausted. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Syrians fled to Europe to seek refuge, sparking a migration crisis in the EU.



Syria: 8 years of war and unclear prospects for conflict resolution

International coalition against IS

In September 2014, US President Barack Obama announced the creation of an international coalition against the Islamic State, which included more than 60 states. Coalition members carried out airstrikes on militant positions, trained local ground forces, and provided humanitarian aid to the population. In December 2018, US President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of American soldiers from Syria, citing the victory over the Islamic State.



Syria: 8 years of war and unclear prospects for conflict resolution

Islamic Anti-Terrorism Coalition

In December 2015, Saudi Arabia presented its anti-terrorist coalition consisting of Islamic countries. It includes 34 states, some of which, like the Saudis themselves, are also members of the international coalition led by the United States.



Syria: 8 years of war and unclear prospects for conflict resolution

Russian participation

Since the fall of 2015, the Russian Aerospace Forces have also been carrying out strikes in Syria - according to Moscow, only against IS positions. According to NATO, 80% of Russian air strikes were aimed at Assad's opponents from the moderate opposition. In November 2017, Putin announced the imminent end of the military mission in Syria. The group will be reduced, but the Russian Federation will still have 2 military bases and some other structures at its disposal.



Syria: 8 years of war and unclear prospects for conflict resolution

Peace negotiations

On March 14, 2016, on the eve of the 5th anniversary of the start of the civil war in Syria, negotiations on a peaceful settlement of the conflict under the auspices of the UN began in Geneva. The first such attempt in early February ended in failure amid the offensive of Assad’s army on the city of Aleppo. A second chance appeared after the conclusion of a truce between the parties on February 27 with the assistance of the United States and the Russian Federation.



Syria: 8 years of war and unclear prospects for conflict resolution

Use of chemical weapons

According to a joint UN-OPCW report, the Assad regime was responsible for using the chemical agent sarin in Khan Sheikhoun on April 4, 2017, and the Islamic State used sulfur mustard during an attack in Um Khosh in September 2016.



Syria: 8 years of war and unclear prospects for conflict resolution

Agreement on security zones

Since January 2017, in the capital of Kazakhstan, on the initiative of Russia, Turkey and Iran, parallel inter-Syrian negotiations on a settlement in Syria have been held in Geneva. For the first time, representatives of both the Bashar al-Assad regime and opposition forces met at the same table. In May, a memorandum was signed in Astana on the creation of four de-escalation zones in northern, central and southern Syria.



Syria: 8 years of war and unclear prospects for conflict resolution

A year of radical change in Syria

2017 brought radical changes to the situation in Syria. Back in December 2016, Assad’s troops, with the support of the Russian Aerospace Forces, liberated Aleppo, and in the spring of 2017, Homs. And in June, US-Russian agreements were reached to establish the Euphrates River as a dividing line between the Syrian Democratic Forces and Assad’s troops.



Syria: 8 years of war and unclear prospects for conflict resolution

Defeat of ISIS, but not yet final victory

In 2018, Assad’s troops occupied the strategically important city of Deir ez-Zor and a number of others. And the opposition "Forces of Democratic Syria" and the Kurdish People's Self-Defense Units with the support of the United States - Raqqa. On March 3, 2019, the decisive battle took place for the last settlement of Baghgus, which is in the hands of IS. After the liberation of the village, only the remote region west of the Euphrates will remain under IS control.



Syria: 8 years of war and unclear prospects for conflict resolution

"Troika" in Sochi

In 2017, at a meeting in Sochi, the leaders of the Russian Federation, Iran and Turkey, Vladimir Putin, Hassan Rouhani and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, came up with a number of initiatives, calling on Damascus and the opposition to participate in the Syrian National Dialogue Congress, which should open the way to constitutional reform. In 2019, the leaders of the three states said that control of Syria should return to the government in Damascus.



Syria: 8 years of war and unclear prospects for conflict resolution

New use of chemical weapons in Duma

According to humanitarian organizations, on April 7, 2018, in the city of Duma, the last hotbed of resistance by Islamists and rebels in the region, chemical weapons were used again. According to WHO, more than 70 people died during the attack, and 500 residents showed symptoms of poisoning. The Syrian authorities denied this information. But on March 1, 2019, OPCW experts concluded that chlorine was most likely used in Douma.

After a series of publications about the Wagner PMC - probably associated with restaurateur Yevgeny Prigozhin - journalist Denis Korotkov is forced to be more careful when entering the front door. Online trolls exchange his personal data, including his address, on the Internet and promise to straighten his brains out.

For two days - August 21 and 23 - the online newspaper Fontanka published an investigation (5 materials) about the “private military company Wagner”, which fought in the Donbass and Syria. Journalist Denis Korotkov spoke about the commanders of the armed formation, human losses, the location of the training base (coinciding with the location of military unit 51532 of the Ministry of Defense in the village of Molkino) and the motives of the Russians who went to kill as part of the semi-legal “Wagner group”.

Wagner PMC is not officially registered and is not associated with the Ministry of Defense. She fought on the side of the separatists in Ukraine, and later the mercenaries were transferred to Syria. According to some reports, the group acts in the interests of Euro Policy LLC, which is associated with restaurateur Yevgeny Prigozhin. Fontanka reported that the company entered into a memorandum with the Assad government, according to which it is obliged to liberate oil fields and oil infrastructure from opponents of the regime and protect them. For this, a company near Moscow with an authorized capital of 10 thousand rubles is entitled to a quarter of the oil and gas production and reimbursement of expenses for military operations.

In early August, the leadership of the Ministry of Defense once again dismissed information about Wagner PMCs. “Some rumors, data from social networks and fictitious conversations with allegedly intimidated anonymous “relatives and acquaintances,” this is how Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov commented on a Reuters publication about unaccounted casualties among Russians in Syria.

It will be more difficult to say the same about Korotkov’s materials. Fontanka publications contain many documents: photographs of mercenaries at a training base in the Krasnodar Territory (Molkino village), copies of passports of the dead, questionnaires filled out by future mercenaries. Perhaps this is precisely why Internet trolls are interested in the figure of Denis Korotkov.

On August 23, a LiveJournal user with the nickname @manzal said in his post that Denis Korotkov is a former police officer, although Denis himself did not advertise this information anywhere. After the comment that “it’s time to feel the journalist’s udder,” anonymous people began discussing addresses where Korotkov could live.

The editors of Fontanka believe that if the place of registration can be found in databases, then the real place of residence can only be found as a result of surveillance. The blog author deleted comments with addresses at the request of Fontanka. The editors also believe that the threat to their author comes not only from the network - the decision could have been made at a much more serious level: “According to our information, after Korotkov’s articles, a meeting was held in structures associated with the Wagner group. The essence of the decisions taken was conveyed to Fontanka, but we still hope for common sense.”

Denis Korotkov told Novaya that this is the first time he has received direct threats. “I had to write a lot about not the most pleasant people,” he says, “but for someone to have the brains to make direct threats, I don’t remember that.” The journalist’s fears stem from the fact that the address published online scatters the circle of those responsible for a possible attack: “If I now get hit on the head with a pipe in the entrance, they will say that some concerned patriots read it and hit me on the head.”

Threats can be interpreted in a non-standard way, the journalist believes. “I would consider this as a provocation - so that we publish even more materials. Despite the obvious ( negative. - Ed.) my attitude towards illegal armed groups, we did not publish the data of relatives and living fighters of this formation. And despite such a flow of crap, we will not allow ourselves to do this in the future,” Korotkov said.

Denis himself and the editors of Fontanka took reasonable precautions. Korotkov is still working; the threats will not affect the tone of future materials in any way. “This is an inevitable part of the work of journalists all over the world if they deal with serious topics,” says Fontanka editor-in-chief Alexander Gorshkov. - Such topics should not be liked by everyone - this is not a copper coin. It’s not that we’re used to it, we don’t want to get used to it.”

According to Gorshkov, the police have already taken charge of the incident. Deputy Boris Vishnevsky (Yabloko) sent an appeal to the head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for St. Petersburg and the region with a request to ensure Korotkov’s safety and identify those who threatened him. “Maximum publicity of this story is one of the few means that we have in our arsenal,” concluded Alexander Gorshkov.

Restaurateur Yevgeny Prigozhin became a widely discussed person in 2013. Novaya Gazeta then spoke about a “troll factory” - Internet Research Agency LLC - whose employees received salaries for pro-Kremlin posts and comments on social networks. Investigations by several media outlets have shown that the “factory” was sponsored by Prigozhin’s company Concord and is linked to attacks on online critics of the Russian authorities.

After publications about the losses of the Wagner PMC in Syria, Fontanka reporter Denis Korotkov was promised reprisals. The surveillance of him is supported by personal data posted on the Internet including his home address.

“It’s time to touch this Denis by the udder...”, “This dude needs to straighten his brains out, but you made a mistake with the address. This rat lives...” Dialogues of anonymous users about Denis Korotkov and his prospects appeared in LiveJournal threads under posts of authors who expressed dissatisfaction with the investigation into the Wagner group in Syria - a private armed group that, according to PMC defenders, is financed with funds St. Petersburg billionaire Evgeny Prigozhin.

Over the past 24 hours, the Runet has been stormed by defenders of the Wagner PMC. Fifty articles of the same type have appeared on unknown websites and posts on LiveJournal about Korotkov, who “danced on the bones of Russian citizens killed in Syria,” and they are multiplying.

The reason for the massive counterattack was Denis Korotkov’s publications about the real losses of the armed formation - on August 21 and 23 the articles “”, “”, “”, “”, “” were published.

On August 23, LiveJournal published a post by St. Petersburg resident Andrei Manzolevsky, “Wagner PMCs and those killed in Syria. Sensation from St. Petersburg." Korotkov was presented by the author as a “fired policeman,” and in the comment thread there was a serious emphasis on the reporter’s person and his prospects.

“It’s time to feel this Denis’s udder...”

An anonymous person responded to it:

“Well, feel it: I punched it through the kronos - there is one Denis Korotkov, 48 years old, lives in St. Petersburg on ... the street.”

Another interlocutor corrected:

“This dude needs to straighten his brains out, but you got the address wrong. This rat lives in... on the street..."

Korotkov is related to both of these addresses. And while the place of registration can indeed be found in databases, the actual location cannot be found. Korotkov did not indicate it anywhere. Also, despite his publicity (he received the Golden Pen, the Open Russia award, and gave interviews), he never advertised his police past.

Fontanka contacted Andrei Manzolevsky and asked:

- How do you know that Korotkov had something to do with the police?
– A source told me this.
-Have you collected information about Korotkov?
- No. I have readers, they sent me an article, I reacted emotionally and published a post. In the discussions, they sent me certain information [about Korotkov].

Andrey quite sincerely said that he had not seen the comments with the reporter’s personal information.

“If they post comments with personal information, I delete them. I haven't seen these. Send me the links, I will remove them, of course. Nobody personally gave me Korotkov’s address.”

“In the modern world, it is difficult to imagine private individuals actively helping to fight terrorism. However, St. Petersburg businessman Evgeny Prigozhin, like a true patriot, directs part of his profits to support volunteer forces in Syria,” writes the portal http://x-true.info. It was registered in 2014 in the United States.

There are many similar references to Prigozhin. It is noteworthy that the media, closely associated with the businessman’s media empire, this time ignored the topic of Syria and the Wagner PMC and did not enter into an absentee debate.

It is also noteworthy that Yevgeny Prigozhin’s entourage was noticed collecting information about Korotkov not even in 2016, when he released the material “Kitchen of a Private Army.” The publication became the first in which the name of the billionaire was associated with the Wagner PMC (a few hours after the publication, the newspaper’s website was subjected to a DDoS attack, and unknown persons artlessly tried to find out).

Fontanka knows for certain that back in the summer of 2013, Prigozhin’s security service not only made inquiries about Korotkov’s creative plans, but also tried to recruit some editorial staff to spy on him and formulate a comprehensive dossier, including the police track record, of the educational institutions he attends. children, home address, traditional meeting places with sources and habits: what kind of tobacco he prefers, what hours he drinks coffee, what lighter he uses to light his pipe.

According to our information, after Korotkov’s articles, a meeting was held in structures associated with the Wagner group. The essence of the decisions taken was conveyed to Fontanka, but we still hope for common sense.

Due to the fact that on the evening of August 23, unknown, but certainly knowledgeable persons posted Korotkov’s actual residential address on the Internet (thus the circle of people with access to personal data was expanded to unlimited), and anonymous people resumed an unhealthy interest in him, the editors of Fontanka » asks the law enforcement agencies of St. Petersburg to consider the publication an official statement in order to take measures and prevent the onset of undesirable consequences.

P.S. We would like to add that, for its part, Fontanka has taken security measures, including to protect information of interest to certain individuals.

A scandal involving Fontanka columnist Denis Korotkov is gaining momentum on the Internet. In short, the guy is trying to make money from publications about the Wagner PMC - a group of volunteers fighting militants in Syria. He makes them out to be some kind of drunks who are chasing money, while also managing to discredit the honor of the dead soldiers at the same time. What is important is that the journalist publishes the personal data of the Wagnerites, but when it came to information about Korotkov himself in the post manzal , then the cowardly Denis immediately began to fight in hysterics.

It is clear that the Fontanka columnist was afraid of revenge. He took and declassified the data of those who kill terrorists. After all, there are names, photographs, and families... Is it okay that this information may end up in the hands of militants who may also want to avenge their dead colleagues? What was Korotkov thinking about, putting the lives of all these people at risk?

But what threats to himself is Denis talking about today? So cowardly that “feeling the udders” or “settling the brains” is already a danger? Compared to the leak of information carried out by the columnist, this is just baby talk. I'm not even talking about the fact that a normal person, in principle, will not throw mud at compatriots who died in battle, who gave their lives for the sake of our future. How can the tongue turn to criticize these people? But Denis was able to - he had a great time targeting the military, making them look like greedy egoists. And what is all this for? A journalistic prize, money? It’s symbolic, to say the least.

But he’s a master at hiding information about himself—at least he’s already contacted Google. But the country must know who decided to take up arms against its heroes. Shall we distribute?

If someone can’t see it: 21 Alexander Panshin Street. Since you’ve decided to play openly, let him get an answer.

Fontanka, by the way, literally just published the IP addresses from which the authors who allegedly threatened Korotkov wrote. So fast? How did they do it? There are two options: either LiveJournal belongs to Fontanka, or journalists continue to make things up in order to stir up a scandal because the messages were supposedly sent from Syria. Which option do you think is more plausible?

In general, it would be logical if Korotkov deleted all the materials and apologized to the Wagner PMC fighters and their families. This will not whiten him, of course, but at least it will show that he realized his mistake. Or is Denis so stupid that he still considers himself right in this situation? In this case, “straightening your brain” definitely won’t hurt.

As Mediazona reported on Wednesday, June 1, at a meeting of the Kuibyshevsky District Court of St. Petersburg, Judge Maria Vasilyeva named the article that billionaire Evgeny Prigozhin asks the Yandex search engine to remove from the search results. It turned out to be a note by journalist Denis Korotkov, “Prigozhin’s Empire took military camps,” published on the Fontanka.ru website. With the permission of our colleagues from Fontanka, we are publishing this investigation in its entirety.

Prigozhin's empire took military camps

Multibillion-dollar contracts from the Ministry of Defense were awarded to companies associated with Kremlin restaurateur Yevgeny Prigozhin. The success is led by five retired St. Petersburg police officers.

Five companies founded in St. Petersburg in August-September 2015 will receive at least 26 billion rubles under government contracts for servicing military camps. The company is headed by five former police officers. They have never been involved in business and are far from the problems of housing and communal services, but they have the right boss - they receive instructions in the Concord office of Yevgeny Prigozhin.

The authority of the patron turned out to be so high that the competition commission of the enterprise of the Ministry of Defense “did not notice” that it was allowing companies without experience, without employees, without reputation and the necessary licenses into the pie, and the prosecutor’s office does not see a crime in an obvious violation of the Criminal Code, which provides for imprisonment for illegal business without licenses. Now structures associated with Prigozhin provide the military with everything - food, cleaning, barracks maintenance, heating and running water. The former Oboronservis becomes a “branch” of the Concord empire.

Since the time of Minister Serdyukov, it has been believed that troops should be engaged exclusively in combat training, and everything else, including the maintenance of military camps, their heating and water supply, cleanliness and order, as well as feeding military personnel, is a matter for civilians. For these purposes, the monster “Oboronservis” was created - a commercial organization with 100% state participation. But Oboronservis was stolen, Serdyukov lost his position, and the new leadership went its own way.

Army General Sergei Shoigu noted in April 2015 that three “granddaughters” of Oboronservis are engaged in the maintenance of buildings, heating and water supply - Slavyanka, REU, Oboronenergo, and proposed combining these functions in one newly created JSC GU Housing and Communal Services." The President and the government supported the minister, and in May 2015, GU Housing and Communal Services was determined to be the only supplier of all utilities for the military.

The words about the only supplier in the person of JSC “GU Housing and Communal Services” turned out to be just beautiful words. Just a few months later, a gap appeared between the joint-stock company with 100% state participation and the army, into which billions are spent.

Today, army boiler room operators across the country work, often without an employment contract, entering the territory of the military units where their workplaces are located, virtually illegally, without obtaining the necessary safety clearances. In St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region they have received salaries for November so far, for December they promise, but they do not name the amount.

Billions into the unknown

In October 2015, several interesting documents appeared on the official website of the state order. While Slavyanka, Oboronenergo and REU provided specialized services on their own, GU Housing and Communal Services decided to involve subcontractors and announced a request for proposals for the entire range of activities in all military districts. The total amount of contracts for heat, water and maintenance of barracks is about 30 billion rubles.

Fontanka studied the list of winners. The most successful candidates turned out to be those created a couple of months before the competition, which no one had ever heard of. Each of them has a single founder, also known as the CEO, who burst into a billion-dollar business out of nowhere. There are about a dozen such companies in total. We focused on five of them that received the largest orders, totaling 26,870,258,453 rubles.

Since November 1, 2015, Nordenergo LLC has been providing water and heat supply in the Western and Central Military Districts - from Kaliningrad to Lake Baikal.

Teplosintez LLC is responsible for water and heat in the Southern and Eastern military districts.

All these companies were registered in St. Petersburg from August 27 to September 14, 2015, TKS LLC and Teplosintez - on the same day. Their owners, who are also the founders, are a subject of separate interest. Men aged 42 to 47 years. None of them had previously owned any business. No one has ever held the position of head of the company. As far as Fontanka knows, they have one thing in common - they all previously served in the St. Petersburg police.

The truth of Rostechnadzor versus the truth of the State Housing and Communal Services Administration

Even a preliminary study of the procedure caused misunderstanding: common sense and available documents indicated that none of the winners could even be allowed to participate in the competition.

The competition commission assessed criteria such as: the number and qualifications of labor resources, the amount of financial resources for 2013-2014, its own experience in implementing similar contracts for 2014 and the first three quarters of 2015, business reputation confirmed by certificates and thanks. Mark in the protocol - information has been submitted. That is, information about achievements in 2013-2014 is presented by companies founded in the fall of 2015.

Among the mandatory requirements is the availability of the necessary licenses and permits; a separate line is the mandatory presence of a license to work with information constituting state secrets. There is no publicly available register of such licenses, but arithmetic says that the winning companies simply could not have had one at the time of submitting the documents. For example, the date of registration in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities of Nordenergo LLC is September 14, 2015. The official deadline for providing the state service for obtaining a license for the right to work with state secrets is 60 calendar days. The closing date for accepting applications for water supply to the Western Military District is October 28, 2015, in 44 days.

To work in boiler rooms, a license for servicing high-risk facilities is required. The issuance of these licenses is the responsibility of Rostechnadzor, and the register is publicly available. Neither Nordenergo nor Teplosintez were found in the register.

Nevertheless, in all cases, the competition commissions verified that the applicants had the necessary licenses, as well as work experience. Fontanka sent a request to clarify something unclear to the General Director of JSC GU Housing and Communal Services, Sergei Karpov.

The head of the press service of JSC Maria Lysenko answered for the general: “The commission found that the applications submitted by NordEnergo LLC, Teplosintez LLC, TKS LLC, Proftechuslugi LLC met the requirements of the procurement documentation.”

I had to disturb the regional department of Rostekhnadzor to clarify whether Nordenergo, which serves the entire military North-West, still has a license to work with boiler houses or not. Deputy Head of the North-West Directorate of Rostechnadzor Alexey Kapaev responded:

“Data from the Rostekhnadzor Integrated Information System “Licensing” indicate that Nordenergo LLC does not have a license to operate explosion-, fire-hazardous and chemically hazardous production facilities of hazard classes I, II and III.”

A call to the press service of JSC GU Housing and Communal Services did not clarify the situation. “After consulting with specialists,” Maria Lysenko, contrary to information from Rostekhnadzor and mathematics, clarified that “all necessary licenses and permits to carry out these types of activities were provided as part of the procurement documentation.” Having explained that “in a number of procurements carried out” collective participants took part (which is allowed by law), and in this case the parameters of the members of the association are summed up.

The documents do not confirm the words of the head of the press service and unnamed specialists. There is not a word about a collective participant in the competition documentation.

Shadow of Prigogine

Desperate to understand the logic of choosing water and heat suppliers for the entire Russian army, the Fontanka correspondent tried to get an answer from suddenly successful businessmen - owners and managers of leading companies. The first thought - to call and ask - turned out to be unrealistic.

Call to the press service of the State Housing and Communal Services Administration:

— Please, be kind enough to tell me the contacts of the companies with which the State Housing and Public Utilities Agency has entered into contracts for servicing military camps.
— All contact details are indicated in the competition documentation.
— There are only addresses, but you probably have phone numbers and email.
- No. We cannot disclose personal information. Everything we have is published in the competition documentation.
— I don't ask for personal information. I am asking for the office phone numbers of companies that have entered into multi-billion dollar government contracts. This is public information, and you probably have it.

- There are no phones there.
— All information is contained in the tender documentation.

By a happy coincidence, all organizations are registered in St. Petersburg, and the journalist went on a walking tour.

Nordenergo LLC (more than 10.5 billion under government contracts) - a room in the Senator business center on Chkalovsky Prospekt, building 15. Entrance from the corner. The room contains several cheap office desks, a lot of empty space and several women. One of them recommended herself as the chief accountant.

- Hello. Can I see General Director Dmitry Timofeevich Materikin?
- Certainly. But he has now left for the region. What issue are you talking about?
— On the issue of contracts with the Ministry of Defense to provide heat to our army. Who can I talk to?
— We have just received a contract, we are now hiring workers. We do not give any comments.
— But this is a government contract, concluded on the principles of transparency and accessibility of information. Do you service army boiler houses? Tell me, does the company have a license to service hazardous facilities?
— The license is in the process of obtaining. All payments have been made.
— So you received a contract before you received a license?
- I do not know. And in general, goodbye, otherwise we’ll call the police now.

LLC "Teplosintez" (more than 6 billion under government contracts) - business center "Printing Dvor" on Chkalovsky Prospekt. The premises are a carbon copy. The same tables and computers. The chief accountant is in place.

- Hello. Can I see General Director Igor Vasilievich Ilgin?
- He's not there. He is on vacation. What issue are you talking about?
— Regarding army boiler houses.
— Try calling Megaline.
— Who should I contact at Megaline?
— I don’t know the general picture. I am supervised by the chief accountant of Megaline. You better check there.

LLC "TKS" (more than 2 billion under government contracts) - business center "Nevsky 1", across the courtyard to the second floor, the door is in the nook opposite the toilet. Same desks, same computers. The chief accountant again.

- Hello. Can I see General Director Andrei Yuryevich Rogov?
- He doesn't happen here.
-Where can I find him?
— Vasilyevsky Island, line 17, Megaline.

Teplosnab LLC (about 5.5 billion under government contracts) is a design institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs at 24 Kuibysheva Street, fifth floor without an elevator. The chief accountant and his assistant are unpacking office equipment.

- Hello. How to get to General Director Sergei Valentinovich Lobkov?
“I don’t even know when he’ll be here.”
- Where to look for him? Maybe in Megaline?
- He goes there often.

Proftekhuslugi LLC (about 2.4 billion under government contracts) - Senator business center on the 6th line of Vasilyevsky Island. Room, tables, computers.

- Hello. I would like to see the general director Andrei Nikolaevich Budenkov.
- The manager is not here, but what did you want? I am a chief accountant.
— I wanted to know how your company achieved such wonderful contracts in record time.
- He is unlikely to be able to answer this question for you. The company is part of a holding company, and all issues are resolved within the holding company.
- Which holding? What is it called?
- It's called Megaline.

In each office, managers were left with contact information and a request to contact the editorial office in any convenient way at any time. There was no answer.

In all conversations it was said: “Megaline.” This magic word can mean “Concord”, or more precisely, Yevgeny Prigozhin. If the all-powerful Kremlin restaurateur really has something to do with Nordenergo and other new projects, then the questions disappear. As you know, he has such authority among army officials of the highest standard that he is allowed to develop documentation for competitions in which he intends to participate, and his company’s lawyers sometimes represent the Ministry of Defense in the legislative process - this is exactly what happened when developing concession projects military department in 2014.

According to the SPARK system, Megaline LLC was established in March 2011. Co-founders are Concord Management and Consulting LLC and Lakhta LLC (owner - Svetlana Sobirova). Since 2011, Concord Management and Consulting LLC has been 100% owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mother, Violetta. Prigozhin himself left the company's ownership in 2009.

As RBC journalists established in their investigation, in 2015 Megaline and related companies entered into contracts for the provision of cleaning services to army structures for approximately 3 billion rubles. Earlier, at the end of 2012, Voentorg concluded two-year contracts with subsidiaries of Concord for 92 billion rubles to provide food for army units.

Boiler rooms controlled by the dining room

Not finding answers from the leadership, the journalist went to the people. You can’t easily get into boiler rooms on the territory of military units, but in the units of the former Oboronservis everything is much more democratic.

In Toksovo, at the operational site of the former Slavyanka, employees said innocently: they were explained that since November they have been working in an organization called Nordenergo, but have not yet signed any contracts. They gave me a salary for November, but no advance for December (the conversation took place in the last days of December 2015). They know nothing about their general director Materikin; all papers are written in the name of “regional manager Selikaev R.R.”

The head of the operational site of the former REU JSC in Lomonosov, Alexey Alekseev, also remembered the “regional manager”:

— Alexey Alexandrovich, tell me, what organization do you and your employees work for now? From conversations with them, I understand that they do not have signed employment contracts?
— Now the contracts are being filled out, and we are sending them to management, contracts with Nordenergo.
— I tried to contact the general director of Nordenergo Materikin, but I was unsuccessful. I was told that all issues are resolved by the regional manager Ruslan Selikaev. This is true?
— Yes, he is the regional maintenance manager.
— He is a manager in what organization?
“You’d better ask him about that.” I need some advice.

Yes and no, don’t say, don’t say black and white

Following the advice, Fontanka called Ruslan Selikaev. It was surprising to hear about him as a regional manager responsible for thousands of hazardous production facilities. Two years ago, Selikaev worked at Main Line LLC (according to Novaya Gazeta journalists, associated with Yevgeny Prigozhin), as the manager of the canteen of the training center of the Western Military District, and now he retrained as a technician.

— Ruslan Rakhimovich, hello. Let me clarify, do we understand correctly that you are the regional manager of army boiler houses in the North-West region?
- No, that’s not right at all.
— I talked with employees of Nordenergo LLC, who service army boiler houses in St. Petersburg, in the Leningrad region. They said you are their regional manager. Did they mess something up?
- Well, yes. What happened there? What question are you talking about, I don’t understand?
— I am interested in the problems of Nordenergo. Nordenergo employees told me that the most important person they know is regional manager Ruslan Rakhimovich Selikaev.
- So they must have some kind of general director there.
— There is a general director, Mr. Materikin...
- Yes Yes.
“But the workers say that they have never seen him, and that everything is decided by the regional manager Selikaev. May I know where you work?
- Of course not. What, my job title isn’t written on the Internet?
— It is written on the Internet that you are an employee of Main Line LLC, that you feed military personnel well.
- Yes, it happened, it happened.
—Are you working there now?
— I’m working on many things now, helping many people. Explain what the problem is with boiler rooms?
— At the moment, boiler houses operate without licenses to service high-risk facilities. I ask: who is your boss? They answer me: regional manager Selikaev. Am I being deceived?
- No, the question is simply not posed that way at all. Let me clarify this issue with my leaders. The fact that there was in the boiler rooms, yes, there was. We examined them and talked with the staff... Thank you for the information! Why should I tell you my secret? You can find it on the Internet.
“But my question concerns an open government contract worth many billions; this information should be open and accessible to the public.
- No, this is not true, your information is very flawed. You called incorrectly.

The journalist decided to find out about the possible connection of Megaline and Concord with Nordenergo from the one who probably has the necessary competence - the general director of Megaline, Maxim Moskalev. It turned out that the general director of the company is not the main one, and he needs to get permission from someone. The general did not admit who.

— Maxim Vyacheslavovich, hello. Sorry to bother you, but we can’t figure it out without you. Please tell me, does Megaline have anything to do with the limited liability companies Nordenergo, Teplosintez, Teplosnab, which work to service military camps of the Western Military District?
- You know, I think that you should contact the press service on this issue; I am not authorized to make such comments.
- But this is nonsense. Can the press service have more competence than you, the CEO of the company?
- I can’t comment on you, I’m refraining. I don't think it's necessary.

The last questions were sent to Yevgeny Prigozhin. Fontanka asked to answer whether his commercial interests extend to Megaline LLC, as well as to Nordenergo, Teplosintez, Teplosnab, Proftekhuslugi, TKS, and whether he controls the activities to any extent these companies. No response has been received yet.

Billions without responsibility

In fact, the answers to questions not received from Megaline managers are known to any boiler room manager. It was in the Megaline office that they were gathered on December 4, 2015 for instruction. It is at the Megaline office that candidates for the vacancy of a military boiler room operator are invited for an interview (pretending to be employees of the HR department of the Dvizheniye holding, whose phone numbers and email addresses match the contacts of Megaline and Concord).

Formally, neither Megaline, nor Concord, nor Yevgeny Prigozhin personally have anything to do with obligations under government contracts worth more than 26 billion rubles. If something happens, you will have to ask the five director-owners, who are more like employees of a private security service appointed by the vice-chairmen than managers capable of providing maintenance to thousands of technically complex and dangerous objects. Asking will most likely yield little. Thus, among the well-known achievements of the general director of Nordenergo LLC, Dmitry Materikin, is a license for a private security guard and a 2006 Mitsubishi Lancer, and his area of ​​responsibility is half the country.

Prosecutor's Office: We know

Let us note that the situation with army boiler houses in Russia, which are serviced by organizations that do not have the appropriate licenses, according to the textbook, fits into article 171 of the Criminal Code, taking into account the monetary terms of contracts - in part two of this article, up to two years of imprisonment.

The North-Western Directorate of Rostekhnadzor assured the journalist that they had sent a request to the St. Petersburg division of JSC State Housing and Communal Services, and the Fontanka information was transferred to department 961 of the State Technical Supervision of the Ministry of Defense, which monitors military boiler houses. There has not yet been a response from the military state technical supervision agency to the editor’s question.

Assuming that within two months the military prosecutor’s office should have become interested in the story, Fontanka turned to the St. Petersburg garrison prosecutor’s office. There were two questions: is it known about the actually illegal work of boiler house maintenance personnel and what prosecutorial response measures are being taken?

To the first question, the prosecutor’s office answered: “We know that.”

The answer to the second question was asked to wait 20 minutes. Two weeks have passed, but there is no answer.

Voice of the People

Throughout the country, it’s approximately the same as in the message of the operator of one of the boiler houses dated January 10 (the author’s spelling and punctuation have been preserved. - Ed.):

“Mid January, where are my earnings again!!? Where is the salary, or at least the advance payment for December??!! Will this continue to happen!!? What should we do to prevent this from happening!!???? One day, all over Russia we will turn off everything to hell - electricity, gas, water. And this day is not far off, apparently, one day they will mock us!”

The sentiments of former employees of Slavyanka and REU, who unexpectedly turned out to be employees of the unknown Nordenergo, Teplosintez and others, can be found on the profile page of VKontakte.