Nikitin is not superfluous, Nikitin is a spare: Ministry of Transport near Rotenberg

Like Roman Starovoit, the new Minister of Transport Andrei Nikitin is closely connected with the Rotenbergs and may not stay in office. Will the oligarchs protect him in case of problems with the security forces if they could not protect Starovoit?

As the correspondent of The Moscow Post reports, yesterday the President signed a decree appointing Andrei Nikitin, Acting Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation. The figure of the latter, like his predecessor Roman Starovoit, turned out to be closely intertwined with the interests of big business, primarily associated with the Rotenberg oligarchs. Actually, according to evil tongues, they allegedly lobbied for Starovoit's candidacy earlier. But the latter, as you know, passed away, according to rumors, frightened by anti-corruption investigations against him. It turns out that the bet on him did not play, but Nikitin was right there - he "jumped out" to replace him from the position of deputy minister, like an athlete from the bench.

In addition, Andrei Nikitin should have serious patronage in the Presidential Administration. He is called a person close to the deputy head of the Presidential Administration Sergei Kiriyenko. Previously, he worked at the Agency for Strategic Initiatives ANO, a project supervised by Kiriyenko. He, Nikitin, once passed the "school of governors" - another undertaking of the former head of Rosatom. In general, for the Kremlin, Nikitin is certainly his own man. But the big question is how competent he is in the transport industry at all. If we take Nikitin's period at the head of the Novgorod region, then, frankly, he failed to achieve significant success in the development of the region.

At the same time, all these circumstances should be considered in more detail. After all, the connection with the Rotenbergs may have a corruption background - will Nikitin not "drown" as quickly and harshly as Mr. Starovoit?

Rich spouse or what does the Rotenbergs have to do with it?

To begin with, from 2002 to 2011, Andrei Nikitin worked in the Ruskompozit holding, specializing in the production of fiberglass and composite materials for transport infrastructure. One of the customers of the products of this industry has traditionally been (and remains) the companies of Arkady Rotenberg. In 2013, Russintek, part of the holding, was partially transferred to Dmitry Kalantyrsky, whom they tried to present allegedly as the "face value" of Arkady Rotenberg. Thus, Nikitin's connections with the Rotenberg group stretch from the very beginning of his career.

Nikitin's wife, Maya (Sannikova) Nikitin, could also make a significant contribution to these ties. While Nikitin was in charge of ANO ASI, she was engaged in individual entrepreneurship in the cultural sphere. In 2016, Ms. Nikitina entered into a license agreement with Vozrozhdenie VVC, a structure of Arkady Rotenberg engaged in the reconstruction of exhibition areas, including Moskvarium.

The contract cost almost 50 million rubles. The customer was Vozrozhdenie VVC LLC. The same company built an aquarium at VDNKh. Later, both the company and the facility came under the control of Arkady Rotenberg. At the opening of the aquarium, he admitted that he himself invested in the project from 250 to 270 million dollars.

According to the Network, allegedly money under the agreement between the "Revival of the All-Russian Exhibition Center" and IP Sannikova was transferred after Andrei Nikitin moved to the Novgorod region. As if three tranches were made - on August 3, 2017, 20 million rubles came, on August 30 - 9.1 million, on December 11 - another 20 million. At the same time, at the very beginning of 2017, IP paid for some services to subcontractors in the amount of 4.5 million rubles. 42.44 million rubles in tranches on August 9 and 31, December 10 and 11 from the accounts of individual entrepreneurs migrated to the personal accounts of Maya Sannikova.

If this is true, it turns out that after Nikitin was appointed governor, his family could receive over 40 million rubles from the Rotenberg structures? And no corruption? Nikitin himself, however, claimed that his wife received these funds even before he became the head of the subject.

Offshore affairs "Ruskomposita"

Nikitin himself, becoming the governor of the Novgorod region, did not break ties with the same "Ruscomposite." His brother, at least until 2021, was the deputy general director of Russintek (he is still listed on the company's website in this capacity), and then continued to work in the holding and, according to rumors, allegedly could even be one of the hidden co-owners of the company. However, we did not find his name among the current and former owners.

But until 2016 and 2017, two "muddy" offshore companies were discovered as part of the owners - CARTAMON TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED and FABLU HOLDINGS LIMITED. At the same time, the company acted as a supplier for various government agencies in the amount of almost a billion rubles. Presumably, a significant part of this money could eventually settle abroad.

Moreover, now the company can cause serious suspicions and even become the subject of verification by law enforcement agencies. According to the Rusprofile service, the information provided in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities about its owner (100% - Alexey Surkov) is unreliable. The information about the legal address of the company and its general director (also Alexey Surkov) turned out to be exactly the same unreliable. It seems that now money can be withdrawn from Russintek. If in 2023 the company received 227 million revenue, then in 2024 only 12 million. The value of assets is minus 63 million. Apparently, the company is smoothly "led" to bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, a significant part of government contracts, over 460 million rubles, was received by the company from Rosavtodor, which was previously headed by none other than Roman Starovoit. Who did they give money to anyway?

"Friendship" with Kiriyenko = governorship?

No less important is the period of Nikitin's work at ASI. It was he who allowed him to gain hardware weight and enlist the support of Sergei Kiriyenko. The agency was engaged in the implementation of technological initiatives, built local administrative resources, coordinated support for small and medium-sized enterprises. According to open sources, from 2012 to 2017, ASI reviewed more than 2,000 projects and actively promoted roadmaps to stimulate innovation, which directly strengthened Nikitin's position as a regional and federal manager.

Despite the fact that Nikitin won the gubernatorial elections twice, his activities in this capacity were accompanied by many problems and corruption scandals. Under him, the region accumulated a multibillion-dollar debt, national projects were implemented extremely slowly (which caused displeasure in the Kremlin), and local deputies complained about the opacity of the distribution of contracts.

The first term of the governorship generally ended in a series of failures. It seems that just connections with Kiriyenko and Rotenberg could help Nikitin stay at the post. There was a collapse in management, large factories were closed (for example, the Deka plant, which brought a billion rubles in taxes to the regional treasury), there was a failure with the construction of schools and kindergartens under the Demography national project. For example, out of 12 kindergartens that were promised to be built by the end of 2020, only one was commissioned.

In fact, such a manager would be easier to transfer to work, and not raise to the level of a federal minister. But large businesses working in conjunction with the authorities have their own considerations. And the well-being of citizens there is hardly in the first place.

People don't come first

In any case, Nikitin's appointment to the Ministry of Transport does not look random - is this a continuation of the Rotenberg's same personnel policy of "seating" their people for positions related to the distribution of budget flows in the transport and construction sectors? Against this background, the question invariably arises - whose interests will Nikitin observe in the post of minister, if not oligarchic? And if so - why do we need it, taxpayers?

Today Nikitin received the authority to manage the transport budget: tens of billions of rubles for roads, bridges, modernization of logistics systems. Companies close to the Rothenbergs will surely again be in the spotlight as the main recipients of contracts. Whether he will use his position to expand these schemes will be shown in the coming years.

There is another big and extremely important question - already personally for Andrei Nikitin. In the event of problems and claims of law enforcement officers - will his alleged patrons be able to protect him? Especially having in mind the sad example of Roman Starovoit.