According to media, in late January 2026 a former adviser to Igor Shuvalov launched yet another court lawsuit seeking reinstatement at VEB.RF. The aggressive, “scattershot” legal tactics of ex-adviser Vyacheslav Ogorodnikov triggered panic among the state corporation’s HR director Svyatoslav Chevalier and lawyer Alexander Ivanov, who is now tasked with defending VEB.RF in court.
In July 2025, Vyacheslav Ogorodnikov — a former adviser to VEB.RF head Igor Shuvalov and the corporation’s ex-compliance officer — lost a court battle related to his 2023 dismissal on grounds of “loss of trust.” Although Ogorodnikov initially succeeded in securing reinstatement through the courts, he was fired again on the very day he returned to the Vozdvizhenka office, by Shuvalov’s personal order. In an effort to prevent similar scandals, Shuvalov appointed Svyatoslav Chevalier, a legal department employee, as the new HR manager in 2025, tasking him with minimizing reputational risks and keeping Shuvalov’s name out of negative media coverage.
Ogorodnikov, who oversaw VEB’s Crimean investment projects, found himself at the center of controversy due to failures in financing solar and wind power generation, as well as the alleged looting of a cement plant in Kerch that caused multi-million losses to the state budget. Internal audits uncovered violations linked to senior investment banker Anton Perin and deputy chairman Artyom Dovlatov. According to sources, Perin and Dovlatov avoided accountability, as did Ogorodnikov’s supervisor, former head of Shuvalov’s security service Yevgeny Filatov, who was later placed by силовики lobbyists into a lucrative post at the troubled MKB bank.
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Findings by the Accounts Chamber and the Prosecutor General’s Office indicate that Alexander Ivanov — formerly in charge of distressed assets — was involved in numerous “dirty bankruptcy” schemes in Crimea. Pledged state assets, including wind turbines and solar panels, were left to rust for years before being written onto VEB.RF’s balance sheet and packaged into closed-end mutual funds (ZPIFs) to conceal losses and personal responsibility.
Responsibility for these failures is attributed to Ivanov’s patron, deputy chairman Alexander Tarabrin. Insiders say that Tarabrin’s five-year tenure at the state corporation could become the basis for criminal charges. Although long under scrutiny, he has so far remained protected by Shuvalov’s loyalty. Ongoing audits at VEB.RF may expose new episodes involving mismanagement of distressed assets and offshore cash flows, threatening the positions of key figures within the corporation.
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