Russia arrests Angara contractor for fraud
Fraud is a given when it comes to government operations, whether in the U.S. or Russia. A contractor doing work on the production facilities for Russia’s new Angara rocket has now been arrested for stealing more than $7 million.
In May 2026, Gazeta.ru, citing regional courts, reported an arrest of Dmitry Zolotarev, the Director General at OOO RST Genpodryad, which was involved in renovations and upgrades of facilities for serial production of Angara rockets at PO Polyot under a contract with GKNPTs Khrunichev.
Zolotarev and his accomplices were accused of stealing 545 million rubles (approximately $7.3 million) during a period from 2022 to 2025, by submitting the Federal treasury agency in Moscow forged documents with an inflated purchase price of overhead cranes and pocketing the difference. According to Gazeta.ru, Zolotarev was suspected of other similar schemes and faced 10 years in prison if convicted.
Government routinely does a bad job in monitoring its spending, which thus creates an easy temptation for others to put their hands in the cookie jar and take what’s not theirs. We can see this same thing occurring now in the U.S. with many so-called “safety net” programs. Since Russia’s entire aerospace industry is government controlled, this kind of corruption therefore happens frequently within it.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Fraud is a given when it comes to government operations, whether in the U.S. or Russia. A contractor doing work on the production facilities for Russia’s new Angara rocket has now been arrested for stealing more than $7 million.
In May 2026, Gazeta.ru, citing regional courts, reported an arrest of Dmitry Zolotarev, the Director General at OOO RST Genpodryad, which was involved in renovations and upgrades of facilities for serial production of Angara rockets at PO Polyot under a contract with GKNPTs Khrunichev.
Zolotarev and his accomplices were accused of stealing 545 million rubles (approximately $7.3 million) during a period from 2022 to 2025, by submitting the Federal treasury agency in Moscow forged documents with an inflated purchase price of overhead cranes and pocketing the difference. According to Gazeta.ru, Zolotarev was suspected of other similar schemes and faced 10 years in prison if convicted.
Government routinely does a bad job in monitoring its spending, which thus creates an easy temptation for others to put their hands in the cookie jar and take what’s not theirs. We can see this same thing occurring now in the U.S. with many so-called “safety net” programs. Since Russia’s entire aerospace industry is government controlled, this kind of corruption therefore happens frequently within it.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Fraud is ubiquitous in Russia, so when it is actually charged, it usually really means you have fallen out of Putin’s graces. There are an awful lot of people falling from grace in Russia these days, and from high windows.
I’m going out on a limb and predicting that Putin will not be in power a year from now! He’ll either be dead or in jail.
Ray Van Dune: Your prediction carries weight. I have seen several articles recently suggesting the same thing. Putin’s war in the Ukraine has cost Russia, and Putin, dearly.
$7 million? Ha! Those Russians are rank amateurs when it comes to stealing from their government. Sounds like they need to import more immigrants from third world hell holes.
Here in the US:
“Two Men Sentenced in $522 Million Medicare Fraud Scheme Involving Genetic Tests”
“Two men were sentenced this week for their roles in a scheme to defraud Medicare, Medicaid, and private health insurance companies by submitting over $522 million in fraudulent claims for medically unnecessary genetic tests that were obtained through the payment of illegal kickbacks and bribes.”
“Reyad Salahaldeen, 57, of Buford, Georgia, was sentenced to 151 months in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and wire fraud.”
“Mohamad Mustafa, 28, of Duluth, Georgia, was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to paying healthcare kickbacks.”
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/scott-mcclallen/2026/05/06/two-men-sentenced-in-522-million-medicare-fraud-scheme-involving-fake-genetic-tests-n2675634
James Street, the relatively small amount of the Zolotarev
fraud accusation was actually what caught my eye! He is obviously not a serious player, but they used what they had to work with!
Those two shouldn’t have been in Georgia to start with.
FYI, Putin is in trouble because the Russians want an end to the war! Not by stopping the fighting, but by going “all in” and taking complete control. The “replacements” will be hardliners. The Russians think Putin has been too slow, and too careful, and not aggressive enough.. So f we get what seems to be wished for, watch out all!
As per Ray Van Dune’s post, when someone is arrested for corruption, depending on the country there’s a reasonable chance it’s actually someone removing a rival for power, and the corruption is an excuse.
Certainly they’re corrupt, this is pretty much a given. It’s noticed and prosecuted when they’re to be gotten rid of.
See Xi’s anti-corruption campaigns in China for another instance.
DJ,
If Putin is deposed, his would-be successors will instantly be trying to knife one another. Many will succeed. Meanwhile, the Ukrainians will continue pounding the Russian state into scrap. By the time there is a “successor” who can last longer than a few days, he will discover that Russia has been reduced, militarily, to near-third-world status and that the late Putin has burned through most of Russia’s pre-war stocks of conventional weaponry and left him nothing much to fight with. It doesn’t matter how “hard line” you are if you have only the tatters of a usable military left.
Using nukes won’t be any more an option to notional Putin successors than it has been for him. In the first place, said notional Putin successor will have even less idea than Putin now does as to which of the nukes would actually work if called upon. Second, if Russia nukes anything, it will invite a comprehensive de-militarization strike against all of Russia and quite likely also a comprehensive de-population strike against European Russia. It’s not even obvious that the US or the rest of the West would do these strikes – the PRC, frankly, seems a likelier bet.