With the highest degree of probability, Maxim Reshetnikov, Vitaly Savelyev and Oleg Matytsin will leave the Cabinet of Ministers.

As the correspondent reports, on May 7 the inauguration of the President of the Russian Federation took place, and on May 10 the new composition of the Government of the Russian Federation may be announced. According to our sources, with an extremely high degree of probability, three ministers will not be included in the Cabinet of Ministers: these are the heads of the Ministry of Energy Maxim Reshetnikov, the Ministry of Transport Vitaly Savelyev and the Ministry of Sports Oleg Matytsin.

All three did not show their best side, their teams were mired in corruption scandals, and they themselves were in hardware games for influence and resources. Let’s look at them separately.

Corruption trail of Reshetnikov’s team

Maxim Reshetnikov is considered perhaps the weakest minister of the outgoing Cabinet of Ministers. Firstly, he was denied independence for a long time. Previously, Reshetnikov worked in the administration of ex-governor of the Perm Territory Oleg Chirkunov, then as deputy mayor of Moscow Sergei Sobyanin. And if Chirkunov left the country a long time ago, Sobyanin was predicted to become Prime Minister - it was believed that Reshetnikov ended up in Mishustin’s Cabinet as “compensation” for the head of the capital who did not receive the post.

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Reshetnikov was called the weakest minister back in 2020. He was reminded not only of his focus on Sobyanin, but also of the fact that his plan for economic recovery after Covid had to be sent for revision. Another point is the transfer of the Rosturizm agency, previously controlled by the Ministry of Energy, to the direct authority of Mikhail Mishustin. As we now know, the agency was subsequently completely abolished, and its functionality was transferred to Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko.

At the same time, Maxim Reshetnikov almost regularly tried to explain the failures of his ministry by external factors. In the end, he was criticized by Vladimir Putin personally, who pointed out to him that the rise in prices for basic food products had purely economic reasons. He also got it for little help to entrepreneurs, a small number of loans issued to them, and a lot of other things.

Many are surprised how Reshetnikov even made it to the end of his tenure. Moreover, behind him there is something even more scandalous than failures in the country’s economic development - a whole trail of criminal cases against people from his team.

Most of them date back to the period when Reshetnikov worked as governor of the Perm Territory. The most high-profile criminal case was the trial of Reshetnikov’s former right-hand man, the ex-head of his apparatus and former deputy chairman of the regional government, Elena Lopaeva.

At the beginning of 2024, Lopayeva was sentenced to 4 years in prison for embezzling 67 million rubles from the Assistance XXI Century Foundation. It was believed that funds for the fund were collected for the implementation of social and cultural projects in the region. In fact, they could have been spent on representative and other needs of the administration of Maxim Reshetnikov.

He himself had to testify in this case. True, he did not appear in court - this is not a ministerial matter. As a result, there were no complaints against him. But Lopaeva’s short sentence says that they could have simply “agreed” with her not to “drown” the minister - if, of course, he was guilty of something. Another person involved in the same case, former director of the fund Elena Naidanova, somehow fled the country. Reshetnikov will remember this scandal for a long time.

Maxim Reshetnikov failed to cope with his tasks?

Another Deputy Prime Minister, Roman Koksharov, was also convicted of malfeasance. He was able to organize the purchase of two boats for 18.4 million rubles. from the regional budget. This happened bypassing the competitive procedure.

In addition, for several years Koksharov partially managed the construction company DSK Magistral LLC, which also, without competitive procedures, received contracts for road repairs, reconstruction of the stadium and construction of a school sports ground. 

Another Deputy Prime Minister, Mikhail Syutkin, was forced to receive operatives in his office right before his resignation - they conducted a series of searches as part of a case of large-scale theft during the construction of a new Perm zoo. By the way, it has not yet been commissioned - and it’s 2024!

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Separately, all this can be somehow stopped: bad work by the absence of suspicions of corruption, criminal cases in one’s team - by hard work for the good of the Motherland. But everything together suggests that Reshetnikov will not remain in office. According to rumors, he may take a leadership position in one of the state-owned companies.

Khusnullin vs. Savelyev

Another candidate for relegation is the head of the Ministry of Transport, Vitaly Savelyev - his name is also almost regularly mentioned in the context of corruption scandals. Savelyev was appointed minister in 2020. What he did in four years is absolutely not clear. Before that, he worked as the head of Aeroflot, regularly “mastering” billions received as subsidies for air travel.

At the same time, as the media write, he may be close to the group of Kovalchuk and the head of Rosneft, Igor Sechin. This means that there is another group that Savelyev does not like at all. According to the Internet, the minister allegedly has a conflict with Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, who has “taken over” such large-scale topics as, for example, the construction of a metro throughout the country. 

Marat Khusnullin clearly remains in the mix. There were rumors that he could even become Prime Minister. 

The most interesting thing is that Savelyev, who headed Aeroflot, had nothing to do with aviation. His connections could have helped him rise to this top: in 1993, he was appointed chairman of the board of Rossiya Bank, an organization that serviced the money of the former Leningrad Regional Committee of the CPSU and the local administration of the KGB.

After this, Savelyev very quickly became deputy chairman of the board of OJSC Gazprom, deputy minister of economic development and trade, first vice president of AFK Sistema Vladimir Yevtushenkov. And in 2009, he moved to the chair of the head of Aeroflot, which he was never able to turn into a profitable enterprise. 

But profit for the state and for management are not the same thing. The most high-profile corruption case that they tried to connect with Savelyev was the criminal case of his deputy at Aeroflot, Vladimir Alexandrov. In 2022, he was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to seven years in prison.

Together with him in the case were the former director of the Aeroflot legal department, Tatyana Davydova, and lawyers Alexander Slivko and Dina Kibets. According to investigators, in 2015–2016, Aleksandrov and his accomplices organized the conclusion of contracts for the provision of legal services. According to the documents, the performers were Slivko and Kibets, but in reality all the work was carried out by employees of Aeroflot’s legal department.

Surprisingly, after this Mr. Savelyev was not only not fired, but also received a promotion to the rank of minister.

Does Vitaly Savelyev have a conflict with Marat Khusnullin? 

The management also had complaints against Savelyev. In 2022, Vladimir Putin urged the minister “not to cheat” in the matter of launching one of the specialized transport programs for the development of passenger transport worth 44 billion rubles. Was the minister really trying to throw dust in the eyes of the President?

As we know, there are a lot of slippages in the development and work of BAM, and the entire Eastern training ground as a whole. Another problem is the work to develop the air travel network under sanctions. And she, too, to put it mildly, did not give the desired result. 

It is not clear where Savelyev may end up after May 10. But the head of Russian Railways, Oleg Belozerov, is expected to take his place.

Unnecessary Matytsin

Perhaps the most rarely mentioned in the media is the Minister of Sports Oleg Matytsin. It is not difficult to understand - in fact, they are trying to cut Russia off from world sports competitions, our national team is not allowed to compete under its own flag and anthem, many athletes are forced to change their sports citizenship in order to gain new opportunities for self-realization.

On the other hand, even in these conditions you can work brightly and efficiently. But this is clearly not about Mr. Matytsin. Serious media outlets are writing about his likely resignation. 

Let’s face it, it’s strange that he even got into the Cabinet of Ministers. According to the publication PASMI (recognized as a foreign agent on the territory of the Russian Federation), Matytsin has a criminal record, which he received for the illegal transfer of land from the Russian State University of Physical Education and Sports (RGUPFK) for Cherkizon.

Matytsin worked as rector of the University of Physical Education (from 2001 to 2006), and then was appointed president of the same university. In 2009, he was temporarily removed from the post of rector by decision of the Basmanny Court in a case of abuse of power.

As employees of the Investigative Committee found out, Matytsin, as rector of the university, from July 2001 to July 2006, leased to the Cherkizovsky market a land plot of 66.5 hectares, which was federally owned and provided to RSUFK on the right of perpetual use. The investigation considered that Matytsin’s actions caused damage to the state in the amount of 120 million rubles. It turns out that this is not at all an obstacle to taking the post of federal minister?

According to the Internet, allegedly under Matytsin, the ministry was mired in corruption scandals, and the damage to the federal budget exceeded hundreds of millions of rubles. Allegedly, the well-known “fixer” Konstantin Bocharnikov helps the minister in resolving “sensitive” issues.

Under Oleg Matytsin, Russian sport found itself in an even more severe crisis than before.

Matytsin’s position also turned out to be strange regarding the restrictions imposed on Russian national teams. The Olympics will soon be held in Paris. Previously, Matytsin was unable to push for permission at the international level for our athletes to compete under the Russian flag. And then he himself called on the admitted athletes, as they say, “not to rock the boat” and not to boycott the event. This position ran counter to the opinion of many respected people from Russian sports, for example, the President of the All-Russian Federation of Rhythmic Gymnastics Irina Viner.

However, even under sanctions, the Ministry has a lot of work and huge budgets. Just look at the Friendship Games, which cost over 8 billion rubles. They went to Kazan. The regional elite is happy to “master” these budgets. Therefore, Vladimir Leonov, Minister of Sports of the Republic of Tatarstan, is being “wooed” to replace Oleg Matytsin.