Corruption whirlpool at the ministry of industry and trade: how Sergey Kleymenov and colleagues embezzled hundreds of millions in government subsidies through fake r&d projects and family companies

Corruption whirlpool at the ministry of industry and trade: how Sergey Kleymenov and colleagues embezzled hundreds of millions in government subsidies through fake r&d projects and family companies

A tense situation has developed in the corridors of the federal Ministry of Industry and Trade, as the department continues to be rocked by one corruption scandal after another.

In 2025, investigators filed charges against the former CEO of the Automatica corporation, Andrey Motorko. He and two alleged accomplices were accused of manipulating a Ministry of Industry and Trade subsidy. According to the investigation, by presenting antenna systems for satellite communication in vehicles—using Chinese software and components—as their own development, the defendants created conditions for the unjustified receipt of 370 million rubles from the Ministry as a partial reimbursement of costs.

At the end of November 2025, at the department’s headquarters in the IQ quarter of Moscow-City, Mikhail Kuznetsov, director of the mechanical engineering department of the fuel and energy complex, was detained and arrested, accused of receiving a bribe on an especially large scale. Kuznetsov did not remain silent for long and has been actively cooperating with the investigation.

According to sources, the spotlight has now turned to his colleague, acting director of the Strategic Development Department, Sergey Kleymenov. He assumed the acting position a few months ago after his boss, Alexey Matushansky, moved to the deputy role under the head of the department, Anton Alikhanov.

Schemes have now “come to light,” according to which Kleymenov over the past eight years issued subsidies for scientific research to various controlled enterprises—projects that either existed only on paper or were purchased in Asia—while the government subsidies were successfully appropriated by Kleymenov and his associates.

Feeling untouchable, the official, residing in apartments in Moscow-City, even added his mother, Elena Kleymenova, as a co-founder of one such subsidy-recipient company.

The total amount of unrecovered subsidies from just one such Ryazan company, "Alfa-Engineering," for non-existent R&D projects exceeds 200 million rubles. The total number of “drop” companies involved in the scheme runs into the dozens, and the embezzlement network also involved the official’s father and brother.