Thread by @LIM49Spartan

A thread on corruption in the Russian Navy.

There's a strong possibility that the Moskva's Anti-aircraft systems may have been severely degraded before the war.

A nameless anon on 4chan posted the text of a news article that piqued my interest and prompted this thread.

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Back in 2012, Captain of the First Rank (equivalent to NATO OF-5 Captain) Igor Supranovich (Игорь Супранович) was the Deputy Head of the Department of the Ministry of Defense for ensuring State Defense Orders.

He had contract authority over the following systems:

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S-300F Форт/"Fort" (SA-N-6 GRUMBLE) (Long Range SAMs for Slavas)

4K33 Оса-М/"Osa-M" (SA-N-4 GECKO) (Short Range SAMs for Slavas)

3S90 Ураган/"Uragan" (SA-N-7 GADFLY) (Destroyer SAMs)

3K95 Кинжал/"Kinzhal" (SA-N-9 GAUNTLET) (Destroyers/Frigate SAMs)

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In the fall of 2012, the Deputy General Director of Electropribor contacted Captain Supranovich, asking for help with a contract to modernize/maintain the S-300F Форт/"Fort" (SA-N-6) systems in service with the Russian Navy; offering 5% of the total contract as a kickback.

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Supranovich almost scuttled the deal then and there; as he proposed to assign to the contract all of the missile systems in service with the Russian Navy, to use up all 457 million rubles allocated for repair in the budget.

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It was then determined at the time that besides the "Fort" (SA-N-6) program, only the "Kinzhal" (SA-N-9 GAUNTLET) and "Osa-M" (SA-N-4 GECKO) systems needed repair.

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Supranovich then looked at the list of six companies that were planned to be offered a tender for the modernization contract; and then added a seventh company to the list by hand -- Electropribor.

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Next, Supranovich informed his superiors that only one company accepted the Ministry of Defense's tender -- Electropribor. Left unsaid was that no other company received the tender other than Electropribor.

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Thus, Elektropribor -- a company that wasn't even licensed to service missile complexes -- won the contract to modernize the Northern Fleet's surface to air missile complexes.

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Elektropribor's "modernization" was only on paper -- parts whose service life had expired weren't replaced and Supranovich, who was also the contract acceptance officer, falsified the acceptance reports of the modernized missiles.

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Supranovich didn't stop there. In 2013, he was once again approached by different companies offering the same percentage (5%) for missile modernization contracts dated 2014.

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The contracts Supranovich handled for 2014-15 were:

Elektropribor:
S-300F Форт/"Fort" (SA-N-6 GRUMBLE)
3S90 Ураган/"Uragan" (SA-N-7 GADFLY)

Saratov
4K33 Оса-М/"Osa-M" (SA-N-4 GECKO)

Soyuz-M
3K95 Кинжал/"Kinzhal" (SA-N-9 GAUNTLET)

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The total amount of contracts Supranovich handled for those three companies in the 2013-2015 cycle was worth almost 1 billion Rubles, of which more than 692 million Rubles were stolen.

Of that, more than 16 million rubles were paid to Supranovich personally.

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Eventually, on 22 March 2022, FSB personnel began to arrest various personalities connected with this scheme.

What does all this have to do with the Moskva sinking?

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Supranovich's corruption involved both the short range and long range surface to air missile systems on the Slava class cruisers; of which the Moskva was a member of.

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While the Moskva was never a member of the Northern Fleet as far as I can ascertain, being in the Mediterranean at the time of Supranovich's contracts (2014-2015) -- due to the cost of missiles, they may have been shared between fleets.

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I suspect that the Russians knew the missiles were 'bad' but couldn't prove which ones were 'bad', because that would involve a very expensive destructive tear down of the missiles necessitating a total refurbishment of them ($$$).

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I also suspect that Supranovich was careful enough to ensure that a certain number of weapons 'modernized' under his contracting authority were actually modernized, so that he could pass "random" live fire testing, and pencil whip the rest with his signature.

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This is how corruption quite literally kills, and why contracting officers are so important.

Sources:
kommersant.ru/doc/5271652

versia.ru/kapitan-pervog…

/19 End Thread

BONUS: Given the timing of the arrests; it's likely the investigation was precipitated by an unusually large number of SAM failures on the Moskva during the initial Z-Operation stages.

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Unlike patrolling off the coast of Syria, where your primary weapon is your fire control radar (you scare people off by 'painting' them), against the Ukrainians, you kind of actually have to launch missiles; and you'd quickly run thru the "safe" missiles for tests and hit duds.