Lobuzko Vyacheslav

History

2024: Arrest on charges of embezzlement of 130 million rubles from the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation

On October 17, 2024, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation announced the initiation of a criminal case against the executive director of the Defense Decisions division of the Radio Engineering Institute named after Academician A.L. Mints Vyacheslav Lobuzko and Deputy Chief Designer of the enterprise Vladimir Finkelstein. They are accused of embezzling 130 million rubles from the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.

According to the case file, in 2013, the Ministry of Defense, as part of the execution of the state defense order, signed a contract with the Academician A.L. Mints Radio Engineering Institute for the implementation of a development project with a total value of over 2 billion rubles. In the period from March 2014 to November 2016, Lobuzko and Finkelstein, as established by the investigation, provided false information when performing work on the creation and testing of a "military prototype." The sample was of inadequate quality, and the defendants drew up forged documents. As a result, more than 130 million rubles were stolen, which the suspects distributed among themselves.

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Freepik

The case was initiated by military investigating authorities under Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - fraud committed by an organized group or on an especially large scale. Such acts are punishable by up to ten years in prison. By decision of law enforcement agencies in relation to Lobuzko, a preventive measure was chosen in the form of detention. Finkelstein has been placed under house arrest. The investigation of the criminal case is under control at the Main Military Investigation Department of the RF IC.

As RBC adds, in 2023, Major General Lobuzko was sentenced to five years probation and a fine of 34 million rubles for a bribe to the ex-head of the 5th department of the Office of Military Missions of the Russian Ministry of Defense Andrei Marchukov.^[1]

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