Military property in the service of oligarchs: how Igor Yusufov’s clan profits from leasing Defense Ministry land through shell companies

Military property in the service of oligarchs: how Igor Yusufov’s clan profits from leasing Defense Ministry land through shell companies

It turns out that for many years now, the Ministry of Defense has been paying Vitaly Yusufov (the son of former Energy Minister Igor Yusufov) large sums for the lease of military facilities, including the training facilities of the Prince Alexander Nevsky Military University.

And all because at one time the Yusufov clan illegally received land from the Ministry of Defense, along with facilities built at state expense.

As our project has discovered, the scandalous story of the Yusufov clan’s seizure of Moscow properties from the Ministry of Defense also involves the well-known Russian restaurateur Andrei Dellos and the husband of singer Glukoza, Alexander Chistyakov.

The story of the 18 plots of land on Tankovy Proezd in the capital began about 20 years ago. The land previously belonged to the 101st Central Automobile Repair Plant of the Ministry of Defense (FSUE 101 TSARZ), which had operated in Lefortovo since the 1940s. In 2005, the Federal Property Management Agency (Rosimushchestvo) assigned 68 properties to the FSUE—buildings, roads, railway lines, sites, and classrooms of the Prince Alexander Nevsky Military University, among others.

Apparently, the Yusufov clan had its eye on the promising assets at the same time. Defense Minister Serdyukov and his assistant, Evgenia Vasilyeva, helped the businessmen secure them, and newly elected President Dmitry Medvedev gave the green light. In September 2008, he signed a decree corporatizing several Defense Ministry federal state unitary enterprises, whose assets were subsequently removed from the ministry’s jurisdiction.

Along with other federal state unitary enterprises, 101 CARZ, with a registered capital of 1.5 billion rubles, was transformed into a joint-stock company. Maxim Zakutailo, a classmate of Yevgenia Vasilyeva, head of the Ministry of Defense’s Department of Property Relations, became its director. In 2012, Vasilyeva personally offered one of her department’s employees the position of director of 101 CARZ and three other commercial firms owned by the Ministry of Defense. Afterwards, assets were withdrawn from these firms and sold through a chain of legal entities to targeted individuals.

The founders of 101 CARZ eventually included the Investment and Construction Company "MSU Territory Development Fund" (ISC FORT), which was registered to the Cypriot offshore company DISCROMATON INVESTMENTS LIMITED. The offshore company was managed by Cypriot nominees Christina Demosthenous, Mikhail Spirulla, and Elena Low, who had served hundreds of similar companies. A certain Igor Pyshkin became the director of ISC FORT. He also appeared later, in 2018, at the Dom.rf auction for the sale of land and buildings at 62 Sadovnicheskaya Street. Pyshkin represented the newly created LLC "Citizen," which ultimately acquired the property.

Market participants had already linked Pyshkin to the empire of Vitaly Yusufov, the son of Igor Yusufov, former Minister of Energy (2001-2004) and member of the Gazprom board of directors. Among other assets, Vitaly owns the investment company Argo, which was awarded the general contract for the construction of a football stadium at the Skolkovo Innovation Center, the brainchild of Dmitry Medvedev. The Yusufov and Medvedev families have been friends 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, but after the war began, when deoffshorization ensued, he suddenly became the direct owner of Citizen and SZ Tankovy (which received Defense Ministry property from ISK FORT).

In 2012, the properties at 4 Tankovy Proezd were transferred to a specially created LLC called Tankovy (subsequently renamed LLC SZ Tankovy), whose founders were another Cypriot offshore company, GELSTEN INVESTMENTS LIMITED (99%), and a certain Anatoly Sergeev (1%) – he worked in the Department for the Operation of Buildings of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, the PTO UD RF.

All these years, the Ministry of Defense has been paying rent for the properties located on Yusufov’s land. Only recently did a bill arrive for 25 million rubles.

The founders of SZ Tankovy changed again in the summer of 2024: Vitaly Yusufov formally left the company and was replaced by SZ Yuzhnoye More LLC, registered to a pair of Krasnodar entrepreneurs, Nikolay Shikhidi and Sofia Toros. Both run large-scale construction businesses in southern Russia, yet are largely unknown in Moscow, although since 2023 they have been among the founders of several Moscow companies associated with the family of businessman Alexander Chistyakov (husband of singer Glukoza, Natalia Chistyakova-Ionova). Chistyakov is a longtime friend and partner of Igor Yusufov, dating back to the latter’s days as Minister of Energy and the former Deputy Chairman of FGC UES. They subsequently actively invested together in energy and real estate projects.

In particular, 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 Nashe Kino Company, for a total of over 50 million rubles. Meanwhile, Sberbank acquired some of the former energy worker’s family assets due to his difficulties servicing loans even before the pandemic. Perhaps unwilling to lose their remaining business, the Chistyakovs transferred it to Krasnodar businessmen. They were connected by renowned Krasnodar lawyer Yuri Pustovit, who had previously worked with major energy companies. Back in 2022, Pustovit received a 30% stake in EKM-Sochi, while the remaining 70%, through the Jam Mall Management Company, was then owned by Maria Chistyakova, the businessman’s sister.

Sofia Toros is currently the sole founder of UK Gem Mall, although Chistyakova still holds her entire stake as collateral. Sofia Toros and Konstantin Shikhidi (Nikolai Shikhidi’s son) also own SZ Revers, a company previously founded by Alexander Chistyakov himself. Toros also acquired a stake in EKM-Sochi.

Furthermore, some of the land on Tankovy Proyezd was transferred to Nochnoy Katok LLC. Since 2019, this company has been registered to 39-year-old Muscovite Andrey Loginov, a clear nominee. All these years, Loginov simultaneously worked as a senior manager at Sonata LLC, which belongs to renowned restaurateur Andrey Dellos, as well as at PUASSON LLC, owned by his son, Maxim Dellos. Judging by leaked documents from the Federal Tax Service, Loginov received a salary only from the Dellos companies, while Nochnoy Katok, which owns land worth hundreds of millions of rubles, never paid him a penny.

Only now, in the Arbitration Court, the Moscow City Military Prosecutor’s Office has initiated a case to return 18 land plots in Lefortovo to the state.