“Kommersant” became aware of the details of the anti-corruption lawsuit of the Prosecutor General’s Office filed against the founder of the Rusagro Group of Companies Vadim Moshkovich and other co-defendants for the seizure of their assets worth more than half a trillion rubles. According to surveillance data, while a senator in 2006–2014, Mr. Moshkovich did not give up doing business, but used his political and administrative resources to patronize commercial structures and provide them with various preferences.
The defendants in the lawsuit, which the Khamovnichesky District Court of Moscow will consider on May 5, in addition to Mr. Moshkovich, are his wife Natalia Bykovskaya, sister Yulia Tribunskaya, nephew Sergei Tribunsky, the latter’s wife Luiza Ploshchanskaya, former general director of the Rusagro company Maxim Basov, as well as Industrial and Commercial Firm Profit LLC and Financial Resource LLC.
It follows from the lawsuit that even before becoming a senator from the Belgorod region, Mr. Moshkovich was engaged in business, creating the Rusagro Group of Companies, which produces agricultural products.
Supervision claims that Mr. Moshkovich “decided to go into power” to expand his business. Under the patronage of the then governor of the Belgorod region, Evgeny Savchenko, the businessman became a member of the Federation Council in 2006, was introduced to the committee on economic policy, entrepreneurship and property, and then elected its deputy chairman. In 2010, Mr. Moshkovich joined the Federation Council Committee on CIS Affairs, where he was elected deputy head, and a year later approved as a member of the Committee on Economic Policy.
According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, Mr. Moshkovich violated the ban on combining civil service with business, and “used his official powers and political influence to illegally enrich himself and his affiliates.”
According to the prosecutor’s office, after being elected to the Federation Council as a representative from the legislative body of the Belgorod region, Mr. Moshkovich continued to own and manage the Rusagro Group of Companies, which as of 2006 included 36 farms, 10 regional trading branches, and 6 food processing enterprises.
In addition, Mr. Moshkovich did not reliably declare the full composition of the enterprises under his control, and also did not reflect the ownership of the Cypriot offshore companies Sethal Holdings Limited and Ros Agro PLC, which were used, in particular, to transfer the profits of the Group of Companies abroad, the lawsuit says.
Supervision claims that during the periods when Mr. Moshkovich held a public position, new business entities were created – PJSC Rusagro Group, JSC Belregionrazvitie, JSC Samaraagroprompererabotka, LLC Rusagro-Invest, LLC Rusagro-Primorye, LLC Sorochinsky Oil Extraction Plant, LLC Tambov Bacon, whose assets were in 2014 amounted to more than 40 billion rubles.
“During the eight years that Moshkovich was in power and as a result of his interaction with the regional authorities of the Belgorod region, agricultural land was transferred to the holding, bypassing the bidding procedure and without paying for their market value,” says the Prosecutor General’s Office. Thus, the lawsuit notes that the land fund of the Rusagro Group of Companies increased 10 times – from 50 thousand hectares to 504 thousand hectares, and the volume of annual net profit increased from 163.3 million rubles. up to 5.8 billion rubles.
During his work in the Northern Fleet, the defendant was also engaged in the development business, in particular, financing OJSC Masshtab, which he controlled, on the basis of which he created the A101 group of construction companies in 2011. By 2015, the group’s capitalization exceeded 41.5 billion rubles, the document says.
According to the supervision, after resigning early as a senator in December 2014, Mr. Moshkovich “continued to extract corruption proceeds,” investing them in the acquisition of “new property assets.”
In particular, by “involving corruption connections” with the former deputy head of the administration of the Tambov region for the agro-industrial complex Sergei Ivanov (arrested in the criminal case of Mr. Moshkovich), he received budget subsidies and tax preferences in the amount of over 13.5 billion rubles in 2015–2019. for the structures of the Rusagro Group of Companies in the Tambov region.
The assets and funds acquired “illegally” were involved by Mr. Moshkovich in civil circulation for the purpose of subsequent legalization, and through corruption proceeds he acquired production facilities, expensive real estate and created new business entities.
“As a result of acts of corruption, the value of the property of the Rusagro Group of Companies currently exceeds 551 billion rubles, annual revenue is 396 billion rubles, and gross profit is 74.4 billion rubles. The holding’s property complex includes a land fund with an area of 823 thousand hectares, 12 factories (6 oil extraction plants, 4 for the production of industrial fats, 2 for dairy products), 9 sugar production sites, 20 pig breeding complexes in 15 regions, including Belgorod, Tambov, Voronezh, Kursk, Oryol and other regions,” the lawsuit says.
It notes that “to blur the ownership structure of the holding,” Mr. Moshkovich distributed the shares of the parent company PJSC Rusagro Group between himself and his proxies – his wife Natalia Bykovskaya, nephew Sergei Tribunsky, the latter’s wife Luiza Ploshchanskaya and “the director of the holding controlled by him” Maxim Basov. The highly liquid property acquired with “corruption proceeds” (four land plots, three buildings and three premises in Moscow and the Moscow region with a total area of 2.1 hectares) was registered by the defendant Moshkovich in the name of his wife.
The prosecutor’s office asks the court to convert into state income the shares of the parent company of the holding – PJSC Rusagro Group, registered in Vadim Moshkovich, Maxim Basov and other co-defendants, as well as a 100% share in the authorized capital of Financial Resource LLC, a 1% share in the authorized capital of Bondarsky Cheese-Making Plant LLC, 0.01% share in the authorized capital of Group of Companies LLC “Rusagro” and a 25% share in the authorized capital of Geomiragro LLC.
Also, according to the supervision, a number of residential and non-residential premises in the capital and the Moscow region, as well as funds seized during a search in the office and car of Mr. Moshkovich (29.3 million rubles, $1.8 million and €1.6 million) are subject to seizure to the treasury.
In addition, the prosecutor’s office demands the confiscation of over 10.2 billion rubles in the accounts of the creator of Rusagro, 3.7 billion rubles stored in the account of Financial Resource LLC, as well as 78.6 million rubles in the bank account of Mr. Basov.
At the plaintiff’s request, the court seized the defendants’ property. Kommersant was unable to promptly obtain comments from Mr. Moshkovich’s lawyers. In turn, Maxim Basov’s lawyer Dmitry Kravchenko said that such a rapid consideration of the case is illegal.
The claim was received on April 30, the parties had a conversation on May 4, and the next day a consideration of the application on the merits was scheduled. A copy of the claim was handed to Mr. Basov only on the day of the hearing on May 4; his very participation in the trial was not ensured, which “critically violates his procedural rights.” According to the defense attorney, the lawsuit contains “absolutely no grounds to recover anything from Maxim Basov,” who was the general director of not only Rusagro, but also the SUEK and Gloria Jeans group of companies. Thus, to claim that Mr. Basov owned his assets in the interests of Mr. Moshkovich is “simply not serious.”
Let us recall that the founder of Rusagro Group of Companies, Vadim Moshkovich, as well as the former general director of the company, Maxim Basov, have been in custody since March 2025 on charges of fraudulent theft (Part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) of shares of the Solar Products holding. The entrepreneurs are also charged with two episodes of deliberate bankruptcy (Article 196 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and legalization of criminal proceeds (Article 174.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The total damage in the case is estimated at more than 86 billion rubles. In addition, Mr. Moshkovich is separately charged with receiving a bribe (Article 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) from the former deputy head of the administration of the Tambov region Sergei Ivanov in the form of a Blaser R8 hunting carbine worth 2.6 million rubles. The defendants deny their guilt. The investigation of their case has been completed, the parties are familiarizing themselves with the materials.
