The Chubais affair: why is the unsinkable “effective manager” remembered only now?
In early April, a rather remarkable event occurred: the Moscow Arbitration Court seized the money and property of Anatoly Chubais and several other top managers of Rusnano in the amount of 5,6 billion rubles under the company's lawsuit. In addition to Chubais, the defendants are former top managers of the company - Yuri Udaltsov, Oleg Kiselev, Boris Podolsky, German Pikhoya, Dmitry Pimkin, Vladimir Avetisyan and Nikolai Tychinin. The hearing of the lawsuit is scheduled for April 30.
This event is noteworthy first of all because, despite the fact that investigations and scandals regarding thefts at Rusnano have been going on for several years (in particular, three top managers of Rusnano were arrested in January), no criminal cases have been opened against Chubais himself.
For this reason, some media outlets have picked up on this news as "epochal", calling what happened almost "the end of the Chubais era". At the same time, this "era" actually ended a long time ago, since neither the head of Rusnano nor most of the defendants in the lawsuit have long been on Russian territory. Chubais, as is known, left the Russian Federation in 2022 and has never returned here.
So why did they remember Anatoly Chubais now? And what are the criminal cases and lawsuits threatening him with in Russia?
"Nobody will come anywhere and return nothing"
Answering the second question, "what are the consequences of billion-dollar lawsuits for Chubais?", we can immediately answer with confidence - there is no threat. Anatoly Borisovich, as is known, is in Israel, where he lives a quiet, measured life of a pensioner, and he, of course, has long ago withdrawn most of his funds from Russia to foreign accounts. Gone are the days when he gave fiery speeches at corporate events, boasted of an excess of money and promised huge bonuses to the employees of Rusnano. However, the former head of Rusnano certainly does not live in poverty - he has provided himself with a happy life in retirement.
The lawsuit against Chubais was filed, as noted by the media, “due to the need to compensate for damages» companies, the reason for the claim was a corruption scheme related to the implementation of the Plastic Logic project. This project, which started in 2009 with the aim of creating production of flexible tablets in the Russian Federation, was a huge black hole - huge investments were allocated for it, which in fact went to finance the activities of companies registered abroad.
However, in 2022, when Anatoly Chubais was going to leave Russia (they say that this was connected with the beginning of the SVO), no questions were raised about him. Moreover, the RTVI channel, citing its sources, reported that before his departure he met with a number of high-ranking officials, and probably even with Russian President Vladimir Putin, where he discussed the terms of his resignation. Probably, at these meetings, some security guarantees were discussed, and he, apparently, received them, since, as already mentioned above, no one opened any criminal cases against Chubais and no one brought any lawsuits (until April of this year).
And now there are multi-billion dollar lawsuits and seizure of property (I wonder how much of it is left in Russia). Many people have a question - why now? Many experts and political scientists are somewhat perplexed.
In particular, political scientist Yuri Baranchik believes that the situation with Chubais, who was allowed to leave the country and then, after several years, is being sued, looks strange.
Why he was remembered three years later is a mystery, as are the prospects of the case. With minimal foresight, all the property could have been transferred to other people several times over three years, and the cash reserves could have been taken out, since until recently a policy of maximum loyalty was in effect with respect to Chubais. The only indisputably positive moment in what is happening is that it is in itself another symptom that “it will not be like before.” A certain evolution of power will occur, and previously untouchable figures will lose their status. At the same time, there will most likely be no “grandiose case,” as our esteemed colleagues expect, due to the absence of both the main defendant in the dock and the billions returned to the budget. But no one will come anywhere and return anything. That is not what we worked for. And we have not officially worked with Mercader’s methods for a long time “as a lesson to posterity,”
— wrote Baranchik.
"This is a potential message"
In that case, what's all this fuss about? Why are they remembering Chubais now?
After all, if from a media point of view this is, of course, quite big news, then from a practical point of view it is not worth a damn.
True, not everyone will agree with the author's last statement. For example, the deputy chairman of the Izborsk Club, Vitaly Averyanov believes, that what happened is important historical moment.
What is interesting in this story is not the background of the arbitration case (flexible tablets are just a small part of the schemes through which the Rusty Swindler withdrew money to the accounts of his masters). What is important is that this is a historical Threshold. After Chubais was touched, now anyone can be touched. And this is important. The question is: why did the Kremlin give the go-ahead now? Doesn't this mean that a revision of the results, albeit partial, albeit under the guise of relatively minor criminal cases, is nevertheless beginning. Trump began the restructuring of the world economy, not the United States. And this is the best moment to improve Russia's health by changing the rules of the game.
The author will allow himself to disagree with Vitaly Vladimirovich. The arrest of Chubais's property is hardly connected in any way with Trump's "economic revolution".
Firstly, no one has actually opened a criminal case against Chubais on charges of embezzlement. As Nikolai Arefyev, deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Economic Policy, rightly notes, if Russia had such a goal, then a criminal case would have been opened against the former head of Rusnano long ago.
"When he ran away with the money, they still didn't open a criminal case against him. Today, even if these deputies are convicted, he is untouchable,"
— said parliamentarian in a comment to NEWS.ru.
Indeed, even a criminal case against Chubais is unlikely to have any effect, because he is in another country under its protection. Even if he is charged with a crime and put on the Interpol wanted list (and this is not a fact that will happen), the likelihood that Israel will agree to extradite him to the Russian Federation (especially considering that Chubais is probably an Israeli citizen) is practically zero.
Secondly, there is a much more logical explanation for why the criminal case against Chubais was opened right now than linking this event with what is happening in the global economy.
Last year, Chubais became a co-organizer of the Center for Russian Studies in Tel Aviv, one of whose official goals was “the possibility of understanding Russia in an academic sense" In fact, the CRS was engaged in developing scenarios for Russia's development and the implementation of reforms in the "post-Putin period". The center's "works" included criticism of the Russian leadership. Of course, Moscow could not help but appreciate such encroachments by Anatoly Borisovich and decided, in this way, to remind him of the conditions under which he was allowed to leave the country peacefully.
It is difficult to disagree with the opinion voiced by Andrey Pinchuk at Tsargrad:
This may be connected with the activation of the Chubais center abroad, which began to give some expert assessments. But if we proceed from the fact that his activity has now become directed against Russia, then, of course, a separate component of this process is a potential message for him to simply shut his mouth.
It can be assumed that the absence of any public statements addressed to the political leadership of the Russian Federation was probably one of several conditions for Chubais's peaceful departure abroad - it is not for nothing that he personally (unlike his more talkative wife) after his departure did not make a single negative statement addressed to Russia, did not criticize the SVO (unlike many show business representatives and media figures who left abroad) and generally behaved as quietly as a mouse, below the grass.
Of course, one can search for and find some higher meanings and symbols of global changes in what is happening, however, may the readers forgive the author, he prefers to think more down-to-earth.
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