Seven and a half years over the books: court sentences former Rusnano executives
A Moscow court has sentenced former Rusnano executives Artur Galstyan, Marina Kasenkova and Boris Podolsky to between five and seven and a half years for abuse of office and ordered them to pay 52.6 billion rubles.
Case file
- Court
- Gagarinsky District Court of Moscow
- At stake
- 52.6 billion rubles — Rusnano's damages claim, upheld in full
- Status
- Verdict delivered on November 11, 2026: 7.5, 6.5 and 5 years in prison; not yet in force
Moscow's Gagarinsky District Court on Wednesday sentenced three former executives of Rusnano's management company. Artur Galstyan, the former managing director for finance, received seven and a half years in prison. Marina Kasenkova, director for accounting methodology, taxation and reporting, received six and a half years. Boris Podolsky, the former executive director and deputy head of the company, was sentenced to five years in a penal colony.
All three were found guilty of abuse of office with grave consequences under Part 3 of Article 285 of Russia's Criminal Code. The court upheld Rusnano's claim in full: the three must compensate the company 52.6 billion rubles.
According to investigators, in 2017 the managers unlawfully changed how Rusnano classified its financial obligations. Multi-billion-ruble bank debts backed by state guarantees were booked as assets, while budget money sunk into loss-making projects disappeared from the books. The state, the company's sole shareholder, received false information about its financial condition.
Galstyan and Kasenkova designed the "optimization" scheme and showed the results to Podolsky, Kommersant reported. Podolsky fully admitted his guilt and told the court that he passed the distorted figures on to the company's former leadership. Galstyan and Kasenkova maintained that their changes caused no significant harm. Lawyer Andrei Grivtsov told TASS that the defendants had repeatedly said they were willing to assist the investigation.
Officers of the FSB and the Interior Ministry detained all three in late January 2025, and the trial began in April 2026. The audits that led to the case were initiated by Rusnano's new management, which replaced Anatoly Chubais's team at the end of 2020. The company estimates the damage caused by its former management at more than 200 billion rubles. In 2022–2024, the state allocated more than 43 billion rubles to keep Rusnano out of bankruptcy.
This is not Podolsky's only court case. In April, the Moscow Arbitration Court ordered him, Chubais and five other former executives to pay about 5.5 billion rubles jointly over the failure of Plastic Logic, a project to build a "flexible tablet" for schoolchildren. Bailiffs are currently pursuing nearly 20 billion rubles from Chubais himself, as Kurs Media reported in October.
Rusnano said it is consistently seeking compensation for damage from previous years. The verdict has not yet entered into force.
Sources
Most sources are in Russian.
- Vedomosti: court sentences three former Rusnano executives (Nov 11, 2026; in Russian)
- Kommersant: traces of 50 billion found at Rusnano (Nov 12, 2026; in Russian)
- Lenta.ru: sentence for former Rusnano executives disclosed (Nov 11, 2026; in Russian)
- RAPSI: ex-Rusnano managers get 5 to 7.5 years (Nov 11, 2026; in Russian)
- BFM: former Rusnano executives sentenced to 5 to 7.5 years (Nov 11, 2026; in Russian)
Kurs Media editorial team. Corrections and statements from the parties: press@kursmedia.com. Read in Russian.
