Russian police probe $17m missile forces fraud

  Russian police have uncovered the embezzlement of hundreds of millions of rubles of state funds from Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces (RVSN), the Interior Ministry said on Thursday. High-level Defense Ministry officials and commercial executives are suspected of involvement in the fraud, the Interior Ministry said according to RIA Novosti. In 2008 the Defense Ministry allocated 500 million rubles (about $17 million) for modernization and upgrade of RVSN launch facilities. The head of an RVSN department signed a 10-million ruble contract with the PromSpetsStroi (PSS) company for the modernization of 11 such facilities located in Siberia’s Orenburg region. The contractor only partially fulfilled the contract and failed to meet required quality standards, but received full payment from the Defense Ministry and the RVSN department in question, RIA Novosti reported. Investigators also found that a PSS director received a 1.5-million-ruble kickback from a subcontractor. A criminal case has been opened on charges of graft, fraud and abuse of office. The case is part of a wider probe into alleged fraud involving state assets worth at least $130 million at defense property management firm Oboronservis. The investigation, involving at least a dozen separate instances of fraud, led to the sacking of Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov in November.