Saving Putin’s Chef

This is a video of anger and outrage. All of us here

at the Anti-Corruption Foundation are

absolutely furious. Yes, I’m furious. I feel like

tearing everything apart. We spent more than a year

investigating Putin’s chef

proved everything and exposed him for corruption, and

at the very moment when he was supposed to be

fined 1 billion rubles (about $15 million at the time),

our state saved him from punishment.

You probably remember our

investigation into Putin’s chef,

Yevgeny Prigozhin, also well known

to you as the owner of the so-called

Olgino troll factory. This guy, since

2014, started making enormous amounts of money

from Defense Ministry contracts.

Well, “making money” — meaning stealing. We

really did spend more than a year

proving the cartel — a group

of Prigozhin’s companies through which he

manipulated prices in procurement tenders

for the Defense Ministry. This is a serious formal

offense — there is even an article for it in

the Criminal Code: restriction of

competition. We gathered all the documents,

filed a ton of complaints with the antitrust

service, and then for several months we

kept pushing that antitrust service,

which from the very beginning had no desire

to investigate the schemes of such an

influential person. They kept understating

the size of the cartel. We proved 23 billion

rubles, but the FAS (Federal Antimonopoly Service) agreed to recognize only 2

billion, and we understood perfectly well that

the officials had one task — excuse me —

to let Putin’s chef off the hook. So

we tried to put pressure on them, including

publicly.

You remember that video: in Prigozhin’s case,

several supposedly

independent firms were created that simulated

competition while at the same time receiving

state contracts at the highest possible

prices. After that, the antitrust service,

under the weight of our irrefutable

evidence, agreed with us and

acknowledged that yes, it was a cartel. We

were thrilled, thinking how great we were. We

congratulated Lyubov Sobol and Valera

Zolotukhin, who worked on this case in Bukovel (a ski resort in Ukraine).

Once the cartel had been proven, it was necessary

to decide how to punish the villains.

At the very least, they were supposed to

pay a huge fine, and in fact they should also have

faced criminal liability. But

our authorities refused from the start to put Putin’s chef on the

defendants’ bench.

Okay, so we were waiting for the decision — both

with interest and impatience — on the fine.

Because under our version of the cartel, using

the official methodology for calculating fines,

Prigozhin should have been fined 14

billion rubles (about $210 million at the time). But even under the version

of the cartel that the authorities were legally prepared to recognize,

the antitrust service still should have fined the crooks

at least 1 billion rubles (about $15 million).

Yes, yes, that’s an enormous fine. And the antitrust

service itself tells us that because of

the cartel, prices in tenders were inflated by

20–30 percent, which means the amount

of illegal enrichment received by

Prigozhin’s companies amounts to around

7 billion rubles (about $105 million). And so, on November 8,

the Federal Antimonopoly Service,

headed by Igor Yuryevich Artemyev,

who loves to talk about fighting

cartels — “Today we are facing

the universal cartelization of the Russian

economy. We know exactly how

they collude and in what cases…” — issued the

following decision. What do you think, my dear

friends?

My fellow Russians, how many rubles do you think they fined

Putin’s crony

for a legally proven cartel

through which he stole billions from you? 0

rubles.

Zero kopecks. Prigozhin’s companies, which

for more than a year had fiercely argued with us and

filed papers saying it was all slander, that we

were lying and none of it was true — right

before the decision on the fine, they brought to the

antitrust service a confession

in writing and said, you know what, yes,

we admit it, we’re guilty, we organized

the cartel and rigged military contracts.

And the antitrust service was like, what

good fellows!

Let’s hug — you’ve moved us to

tears. And since you admitted it yourselves,

we release you from punishment and from any fine.

I am not making this up right now, and I’m not

exaggerating — that is exactly what happened. This

crook was completely freed from any

punishment or fines. And some people still have the nerve

to posture. By the way, the head of the

antitrust service, Mr. Artemyev,

is a member of the political committee of the

Yabloko party (a Russian liberal political party).

He is Yavlinsky’s deputy, and once again

during elections they will go around telling everyone

what great anti-corruption fighters they are. I very much

hope that at that moment you will remember

how they saved Putin’s chef,

Prigozhin, from our Anti-Corruption Foundation and from a billion-ruble

fine. So guys, please understand

one simple thing: there will be no fight against

corruption under Putin, and there cannot

be one. This is your example of how

our state works. There is Putin; he wants

to steal our money. He takes his

friend and trusted associate and puts him in charge of

the Defense Ministry budget, where he steals money

for himself and for Putin. And when someone

discovers and proves it, Putin has

special structures that are supposedly

there to oversee things, but in reality

they cover it all up — that’s Putin’s system.

The Investigative Committee will say there was no

crime, and Putin's

anti-monopoly service will say, well, yes,

you did prove the cartel, of course, but perhaps

we'll waive your fine anyway. And that means

all of us together—you and I, all of us together—have

become 7 billion rubles poorer, and

Russia's bureaucracy has once again been convinced:

steal as much as you want, just kick back

a share to Putin and his friends, and then everything will

be fine for you. Other than us, no one can

defeat this system. Well,

to be honest, no one is even trying

to fight it. I am the only presidential candidate

who not only openly

talks about corruption, but also fights it.

So you may disagree with me on some things,

and agree on others, but if

you're tired of tolerating these thieves in power,

then support me—sign right

now in support of my movement,

help me spread

the word, and chip in a few

rubles toward running the election campaign.

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