Oblkommunenergo

History

2025

Appointment of Dmitry Karnauh as CEO

The post of acting general director of the nationalized Oblkommunenergo was taken by Dmitry Karnauh, who has been working in the organization since 2015. This is stated in November 2025 in the official statement of the company. The previous general director Dmitry Budanov was put on the wanted list in September 2025, he is suspected of embezzling more than 20 million rubles. According to investigators, Dmitry Budanov, together with accomplices, stole money that the authorities allocated for the construction of a waste sorting complex, a landfill and almost two hundred waste sites. Read more here

Nationalization

On October 10, 2025, the Leninsky District Court of Yekaterinburg satisfied the claim of the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation on the appeal to the state of the assets of businessmen Alexei Bobrov and Artem Bikov. In particular, one of the largest enterprises of communal energy in the Sverdlovsk region, Oblkommunenergo, was nationalized.

The lawsuit in question was sent to court in mid-September 2025. The prosecutor's office demanded that the company and property associated with the STS Corporation be transferred to the state, which allegedly monopolized the generation and supply of electricity, water supply and solid municipal waste management in the Kurgan, Sverdlovsk, Tyumen regions, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. The case file says that the beneficiaries of the STS Corporation are Bikov and Bobrov, who have Austrian citizenship. According to the Prosecutor General's Office, businessmen, using their connections with the heads of federal and regional government agencies, illegally privatized a number of structures, including Oblkommunenergo, which previously belonged to the Sverdlovsk region.

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Фото: Freepik

As RBC notes, initially Bikov announced his intention to challenge the nationalization of assets. However, later, STS Corporation announced its readiness to transfer Oblkommunenergo to the state to resolve the conflict. The Kommersant newspaper clarifies that in total, more than 150 defendants and affiliates appeared in the lawsuit of the Prosecutor General's Office, including the former vice-governor of the Sverdlovsk region Oleg Chemezov (he was charged under the article on large-scale fraud).

As a result, the court decided to apply to the state income of more than 80 companies associated with Bobrov and Bikov. Among them are STS Corporation Group of Companies, which includes Oblkommunenergo JSC, Kurgan CHPP LLC and other assets.^[1]

Wanted general director Dmitry Budanov

In September 2025, the general director of Oblkommunenergo Dmitry Budanov appeared in the official search database of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He is wanted under a criminal article. Budanov is a defendant in the claim of the Prosecutor General's Office for the seizure of assets from businessmen Alexei Bobrov (taken into custody in a fraud case) and Artem Bikov. To establish "complete control over the enterprise," Sverdlovsk ex-ministers Nikolai Smirnov and Alexei Pyankov in August 2012 appointed Budanov, who is a confidant of Bikov and Bobrov, to the post of head of Oblkommunenergo. Read more here

Notes