The sentence for ex-minister of nuclear industry Evgeny Adamov was read during two days in the Zamoskvoretsky Court of Moscow. He is accused of fraud and office abuse. Other accused are former Director of Troitsky Institute of innovation and thermonuclear research Vyacheslav Pismenny, and former director of Techsnabexport Revmir Fraishtut. All of them were charged with unlawful taking possession of the stock of Global Nuclear Services and Supply, or GNSS, in 1998-1999. The president of GNSS, Alexander Chernov, was put on the wanting list, but in spite of that he is living well in the USA.

The company appeared as a mediator on the international, and American first of all, market of trading the natural uranium. It was registered in Switzerland, and its head-office was based in Washington. The company took part in selling the natural components of reduced-enrichment uranium within the frames of the Russia-US contract REU-HEU totaling to $13 bn.   

In prosecutors’ opinion the accused caused the damage of $31 million to the state. However, even those experts, who were tough opponents to Adamov, wonder why the events that happened 9 years ago are remembered only now.  

It was in July 2001 that four auditors from the Chamber of Accounts signed the Summary Report about the results of the checking Techsnabexport and Troitsky Institute. The report said that since December 1999 62% of GNSS’s stock had belonged to TEXI, “controlled by the family of V.Pismenny, the director of Troitsky Institute”. 

The consistent critic of Evgeny Adamov, former head of Gosatomnadzor, Yuri Vishnevsky believes today’s criminal case to be driven with political motives and he says it appeared as an occasion to take revenge for the past conflict. Former deputy minister Valery Bogdan also says the case is political. Ex-minister of nuclear industry Viktor Mikhailov (who was in the office from 1992-1998) considers it that Adamov, as a man of great ambitions, made many enemies and now the game is going on around him. The vice-president of Kurchatov Institute Nikolai Ponomarev-Stepnoi remarks that the accusation and the trial look strange and unconvincing.           

Former deputy Adamov, Konstantin Kuranov, notes that since 2004 Adamov was the adviser to that-time prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov and had an office in the ministry of nuclear industry. The expert believes that former minister and today’s accused Vyacheslav Pismenny and Revmir Fraishtut did not feel the change of the situation: when the new management came to Techsnabexport and GNSS was excluded from the $13 bn contract, the company got to be in law with Techsnabexport. The cards were stacked against Adamov, and after the arrest in Switzerland all his sins were chalked up on him with the demonstrative toughness: after Switzerland the former minister was kept in the pre-trial prison, which was not necessary.

The expert also draws attention to the fact that it’s only GNSS case to be charged to Adamov. In the mean time the list of claims by Russian deputies and by US enforcement agencies is much larger.

Really, there are more various blames put on Evgeny Adamov in the US indictment and in the reference by State Duma Panel on Combating Corruption. Americans accused Adamov of illegal appropriation of $9 millions out $15 millions allotted for the projects of providing higher nuclear security. The former nuclear minister affirms that all the money was spent to the intended purpose, though rather complicated schemes had to be used for that.      

Item 60 of the US indictment says, for example, about several contracts under which the money was lent to the Russian companies. The Logic-Realty firm was mentioned twice in the document with whom signed were the contracts LH09-21 dated 09/01/98, and LH09-23 dated 09/01/00.    

Investment-building company Logic-Realty was registered at the address where based was Research and Design Institute of Energy Engineering, or RDIEE, in 1995. The Institute was headed by Evgeny Adamov (he is now scientific adviser at the Institute). Mikhail Sergienko (former assistant of Adamov for building matters in the RDIEE), Mikhail Radchenko (head of Atomspeztrans), Anatoly Gukov (former director of operation department at the RDIEE) and close to Adamov Olga Pinchuk were co-founders of Logic-Realty. 

Logic-Realty took part in the Moscow program of resettlement of the residents from Khrushchev’s five-storeyed blocks of flats to the newly built houses; it also built three elite blocks of flats and is finishing the construction of a deluxe settlement, the project named Belgian Village.  

The company did not comment on the situation about indictment delivered on Adamov’s case and did not answer the question if they had received any means under American contracts.

Altogether, the selective approach to accusation of the former minister and his colleagues, the approach not featured with any attempt to find out where exactly the means were transferred from the companies controlled by Evgeny Adamov and his partners, all that looks like the story of political and business conflict. 

Dossier

At that time Techsnabexport was headed by Vladimir Smirnov, an old acquaintance of Vladimir Putin. In 1994 Vladimir Putin, in his capacity of deputy mayor of St Petersburg granted to Smirnov unlimited power of attorney for voting with the shares of a German company SPAG (St Petersburg society property and equity participation), which was involved later in a big European scandal. Putin was mentioned as a member of advisory council of the company.   

The company in question, GNSS, is not alien to Smirnov either. The Swiss lawyer Rikhard Sedrik Ritter, who was a member of the board like the accused Vyacheslav Pismenny, confirmed to a Novaya Gazeta correspondent that his company C3 Consulting collaborated in Zurich with Smirnov, his spouse and his colleague in 1998-1999 (they took part in the projects by SPAG). The lawyer did not specify the field where “collaboration” was done exactly, but it is known that his sphere is property, international finance, creation of trusts and funds, offshore firms and dealing with tax issues.    

It is significant, that Vladimir Smirnov was not for long the head of Techsnabexport.

Novaya Gazeta information

We have been engaged in Evgeny Adamov’s case since 1999. Deputy editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, and the deputy of the State Duma, Yuri Shchekochikhin played a special role in that case. He was the member of the State Duma Panel Against Corruption that tried in 2000 to initiate a criminal case against Adamov. However, the first deputy prosecutor-general Yuri Biriukov (he is a senator now) responded to all the enquiries by the deputies that “no violations were found”. Having failed to get a reaction by the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office, Yuri Shchekochikhin passed all the materials to the USA after which an investigation was started there. In May 2005 Adamov was arrested in Switzerland by request from the US. Only after that the criminal case was also started in Russia.