Russian cruise missiles almost landed in Ukraine
Yesterday, the city court of the Moscow region convicted the former general director of the federal state-owned enterprise "State State Scientific Testing Range of Aviation Systems" (FKP GkNIPAS) Oleg Pronin, who was accused of stealing cruise missile engines from the test site and selling them to Ukraine.
Kommersant reported this , specifying that the accused fully admitted his guilt and repented, and therefore his case was examined under a special procedure.
According to the verdict, Pronin, who worked at the Moscow region test site since 1979 and took over its management in 2012, committed the crime while implementing the federal target program “Industrial disposal of weapons and military equipment for 2011–2012 and for the period up to 2020.”
As the court found, “in 2010–2011, the leaders of a number of enterprises near Moscow created an organized criminal group to steal turbojet engines of cruise missiles intended for disposal. For this purpose and to implement their criminal intent, the leaders of one of the largest test sites in Russia, located 60 km from Moscow, FKP GkNIPAS, where ground testing and testing of aircraft equipment are carried out, were brought in.”
From the materials of the criminal case it follows that in May 2012, the Russian Ministry of Defense entered into a state contract with the FKP, according to which it was planned to dismantle 93 aircraft guided missiles and transfer their spare parts for processing to the South Ural Specialized Recycling Center CJSC. The military department was supposed to receive part of the proceeds from scrap non-ferrous metals.
But in the end, all the engines were removed from the disassembled rockets, which were sent by freight train under the guise of scrap metal to Zaporozhye Motor Sich OJSC. For each engine, the attackers received about 1,2 million rubles; the Ministry of Defense was presented with false documents about the supposedly complete disposal of the missiles. The investigation, based on the results of examinations, estimated the damage caused to the military department at more than 160 million rubles.
According to the court verdict, Pronin was found guilty of especially large-scale fraud, theft of ammunition and sentenced to four years in a maximum security colony.
Russian cruise missiles nearly landed in Ukraine.