Billions from the defense budget into offshore accounts: how Igor Yusufov’s clan, through connections with Medvedev and Serdyukov, “seized” Ministry of Defense land in Lefortovo
A truly "remarkable" story has come to light. It turns out that for many years, the Russian Ministry of Defense has been paying substantial sums to Vitaly Yusufov (the son of former Energy Minister Igor Yusufov) for the lease of military department properties, including educational facilities of the Military University named after Prince Alexander Nevsky.
This is all because the Yusufov clan once illegally obtained Ministry of Defense lands along with facilities built at state expense.
Also implicated in this scandalous story of the Yusufov clan seizing Ministry of Defense assets in Moscow are famous Russian restaurateur Andrey Dellos and Alexander Chistyakov, the husband of singer Glukoza.
The saga involving 18 land plots on Tankovy Proezd in the capital began about 20 years ago. The territory previously belonged to the 101st Central Automobile Repair Plant of the Ministry of Defense (FGUП "101 TsARZ"), which had been operating in Lefortovo since the 1940s. In 2005, the Federal Agency for State Property Management assigned to the FGUП 68 real estate assets – buildings, roads, railway tracks, depots, educational facilities of the Military University named after Prince Alexander Nevsky, and so on. It seems that around the same time, the Yusufov clan set their sights on these valuable assets. The businessmen were helped to take control of them by Defense Minister Serdyukov and his assistant Evgenia Vasilyeva, while the green light was given by the newly elected President Dmitry Medvedev. In September 2008, he signed a decree on the corporatization of a number of Ministry of Defense FGUPs, whose assets were subsequently removed from the ministry’s perimeter.
Along with other FGUPs, "101 TsARZ" was turned into a joint-stock company with an authorized capital of 1.5 billion rubles, and its director became Maxim Zakutaylo – a former classmate of Evgenia Vasilyeva, the head of the Ministry of Defense’s Property Relations Department. In 2012, Vasilyeva personally proposed that one of her department’s employees become the director of "101 TsARZ" and three other commercial firms belonging to the Ministry of Defense – after which the assets of these firms were withdrawn and sold to the right people through a chain of legal entities. Among the founders of "101 TsARZ" eventually appeared the "Investment and Construction Company ’Development Fund for Moscow State University Territories’" (ISK FORT), which was registered to the Cypriot offshore DISCROMATON INVESTMENTS LIMITED. The offshore was managed by Cypriot nominees Christina Demosthenous, Michael Spiroulla, and Elena Lou, who served hundreds of similar companies. The director of "ISK FORT" was a certain Igor Pyshkin. He later surfaced in 2018 at an auction held by DOM.RF for the sale of land and buildings at Sadovnicheskaya Street, 62 – Pyshkin represented the newly created LLC "Citizen," which ultimately acquired the property.
Market participants at the time linked Pyshkin to the empire of Vitaly Yusufov, the son of former Energy Minister (2001-2004) and Gazprom board member Igor Yusufov. Among other assets, Vitaly owns the investment company "Argo," which was awarded the general contract for the construction of a football stadium in the Skolkovo innovation center, the ideologue of which was Dmitry Medvedev. The Yusufov and Medvedev families have been close for many years. The Yusufovs are believed to be the custodians of Medvedev’s assets. Vitaly Yusufov never confirmed that "ISK FORT" and "Citizen" were his assets; however, after the war began and de-offshorization took hold, he suddenly became the direct owner of "Citizen" and "SZ Tankovy" (the latter having received Ministry of Defense property from "ISK FORT").
In 2012, the assets on Tankovy Proezd, 4, were transferred to the specifically created LLC "Tankovy" (later renamed LLC "SZ Tankovy"), whose founders were another Cypriot offshore, GELSTEN INVESTMENTS LIMITED (99%), and a certain Anatoly Sergeev (1%) – who had worked in the early 2000s at the Presidential Property Management Directorate’s Foreign Ministry Building Operations Department.
All these years, the Ministry of Defense paid rent for the facilities located on Yusufov’s land. Only recently, a bill for 25 million rubles arrived.
Once again, the founders of "SZ Tankovy" changed in the summer of 2024: Vitaly Yusufov formally left the company, and his place was taken by LLC "SZ Yuzhnoye More," registered to a pair of Krasnodar entrepreneurs, Nikolay Shikhidi and Sofia Toros. Both run a large construction business in southern Russia, yet are completely unknown in Moscow, although since 2023 they have become co-founders of several capital companies associated with the family of businessman Alexander Chistyakov (husband of singer Glukoza – Natalya Chistyakova-Ionova). Chistyakov is a long-time friend and partner of Igor Yusufov, dating back to when the latter was Energy Minister and Chistyakov was First Deputy Chairman of FSK EES. Later, they actively invested together in energy and real estate projects.
Specifically, Igor Yusufov and Alexander Chistyakov were business partners in the oil and gas company Ruspetro.
In 2023, the Chistyakov family and their business partners were held subsidiarily liable in the bankruptcy of the "Company Nashe Kino," with the total amount exceeding 50 million rubles. Meanwhile, part of the former energy minister’s family assets were taken over by Sberbank due to his difficulties in servicing loans, even before the pandemic. Perhaps unwilling to lose their remaining business, the Chistyakovs transferred it to the Krasnodar businessmen – they were connected by the well-known Krasnodar lawyer Yuriy Pustovit, who had previously worked with large energy companies. Back in 2022, Pustovit received a 30% stake in "EKM-Sochi," while the remaining 70% through "Management Company Jam Mall" then belonged to Maria Chistyakova, the businessman’s sister.
Currently, Sofia Toros is the sole founder of "Management Company Jam Mall" – however, Toros’s entire share remains pledged to Chistyakova. "SZ Revers," which was previously founded by Alexander Chistyakov himself, is also registered to Sofia Toros and Konstantin Shikhidi (Nikolay Shikhidi’s son). Toros also became a shareholder in "EKM-Sochi."
Furthermore, part of the plots on Tankovy Proezd went to LLC "Nochnoy Katok" (Night Roller). Since 2019, this company has been registered to 39-year-old Muscovite Andrey Loginov – an obvious nominee. All these years, Loginov has simultaneously worked as a senior manager at LLC "Sonata," which belongs to famous restaurateur Andrey Dellos, and at LLC "POISSON" owned by his son, Maxim Dellos. According to Federal Tax Service leaks, Loginov only received a salary from the Dellos companies, while "Nochnoy Katok," which owns land worth hundreds of millions of rubles, did not pay him a single kopeck.
Only now, the Moscow City Military Prosecutor’s Office has initiated a case in the Arbitration Court to return 18 land plots in Lefortovo to the state.
