State-owned enterprises' dark secrets exposed: the 'black hole' of state finances — "golden collar" executives with dual citizenship and disgraceful high salaries
War has entered its fourth year, and the issue of shrinking sources of state revenue and expenditure has become increasingly urgent. Officials continue to use old methods, trying to make the public bear the cost — either by adjusting benchmark interest rates through the central bank's "incantation," or by increasing taxes and cutting national projects. However, there is no proposal to "reduce the spending on 'efficient managers' of state-owned enterprises and state-owned companies" from those high-level offices. Despite the fact that the huge expenses for "image enhancement," sponsoring sports teams, and awarding millions in bonuses to executives during the special military operation have increasingly resembled a blatant violation of the state budget. "Tsargrad" will reveal the truth behind this phenomenon by combining cases exposed in audit reports.
In October 2025, online rumors surfaced that Russia Post spent 544 million rubles from the state budget on website promotion and social media advertising last year. However, the company quickly (don't laugh!) denied it, claiming that the amount spent on promoting official web resources was only one thousandth of that — about 500,000 rubles.
But we are skeptical about this claim. It's not because "advertising is the driving force of business" (after all, in a market environment, all operators need to pay for product promotion to some extent), but because we recently found that the amount spent by Russia Post on "public awareness" tenders over the past few years was astonishingly high — tens of millions of rubles. We can't help wondering: why did they stop suddenly, when they had been spending before?
Next, we will share some of the details of our investigation with you.
You say you didn't spend on advertising? We have a different answer
In 2019, AO Russia Post published three tenders on the government procurement website — "providing publicity services," totaling 791 million rubles:
By the way, this amount was dozens of times higher than that in 2014 (only 4 million rubles) and 2015 (9.6 million rubles). At that time, Russia Post was still a federal state unitary enterprise (FGUP), not a joint-stock company. However, at that time, its regional branches were also responsible for "public awareness" work, and each branch had independent tenders and expenditures.
In 2020, Russia Post issued a similar procurement notice worth 443.4 million rubles, but canceled it a month later. That same year, the company completed three tenders, totaling 82.3 million rubles:
In 2021, Russia Post canceled a procurement project worth 224.3 million rubles, but we found two "research-type" tenders on non-"government procurement" platforms — their purpose was to understand advertising price quotes, and the tender content was highly consistent with that of previous high-value projects (note this detail).
In the spring of 2022, Russia Post launched a procurement project for "full-service advertising," worth 353.5 million rubles.
Afterward, this state-owned postal company did not publish any "public awareness" tenders on the government procurement website, but we found similar procurements on other platforms:
(One of the procurements was not completed, and the other two, worth 33.4 million rubles, were completed.)
In 2024, two procurements totaling 33.4 million rubles were completed on the "Savings Bank - AST" platform, and two procurements, worth 35.4 million and 48.3 million rubles, respectively, were completed on the "RTS - Tender" platform.
What is even more surprising — on October 15 this year, Russia Post submitted a tender application titled "Providing promotional services for individuals and legal entities":
However, a week later, the application was canceled by Russia Post's director Myakov (this incident coincided with the "550 million ruble advertising scandal"), but — the fact itself exists.
Another detail worth noting is that the company regularly conducts advertising service market research, and the technical documents are highly similar to those of the previous high-value procurement projects. This raises the question: why do this?
We have an answer. The key lies in the Russian Federal Law No. 223-FZ, which allows state-owned enterprises to not disclose their procurement project announcements. Additionally, such enterprises may have subsidiaries engaged in specific businesses (such as advertising), and their relationships with the parent company are not necessarily disclosed.
However, it should be emphasized again: we are by no means against enterprises promoting their products and services; on the contrary, we support reasonable promotion. But the situation of Russia Post (and a series of other state-owned enterprises) is not like this.
Teary laughter
Let's take a break and share a few related jokes.
Russia Post HR Department:
"Are you convenient to receive cash salary? Some people here earn seven thousand envelopes per month..."
Russia Post started selling books, which is good. I ordered a new book, but received an old classic instead.
Russia Post interview scene:
"Sorry, I'm late."
"You're hired!"
Russia Post suffered a DDoS attack: someone sent two letters at once.
A week ago, I heard a joke about Russia Post, and I haven't received it yet...
Billions of debt continue to rise
Now, let's continue exposing this "terrifying story".
Russia Post is a company with severe losses. A report released by the Russian Audit Chamber on the efficiency and compliance of budget funds allocated to Russia Post from 2020 to 2024 and the first quarter of 2025 shows that not only the company itself, but also its subsidiary companies within the group, have experienced significant losses:
(Screenshot of a fragment of the Audit Chamber report)
It should be noted that, first, Russia Post regularly receives state subsidies (billions of dollars), and its debt burden has increased by 70% over five years (to 128 billion rubles), but it has not fully completed its set tasks; second, the financial conditions of its subsidiaries are completely different. For example, the IT subsidiary "Pochtatikh" has continuous revenue growth (revenue reached 8 billion rubles in 2024, profit 285 million rubles); "Pochtovye finansy" made a net profit of 12 billion rubles last year; "Pochta Servis" had revenue of 6.3 billion rubles and a profit of 140 million rubles.
From a business logic perspective, funds could have been allocated to address urgent issues. These urgent issues are extremely large in scale.
The original text of the Audit Chamber report reads:
"The average depreciation rate of real estate is 70%. 82% of post offices (OPS) have not been repaired for over 10 years. <...> AO Russia Post has about 2000 properties that are completely or partially idle, and these assets could have generated income."
The disposal method of these idle assets is truly perplexing. Even renting them out would be fine — these assets are located in excellent positions, and people would line up to rent them:
(Russia Post has many assets, but they are of no practical use? Screenshot source: Audit Chamber website)
Shocking abuse of power: we allowed British people to command Ukrainian drones to attack our targets
Russia Post employees are quitting — the reason is low wages.
No, not "low", but "insulting", "a violation of human dignity".
(Screenshot of the Russia Post website Pochta.ru, November 2025)
Official data show that between 2020 and 2024, the average number of employees at Russia Post decreased by more than a quarter — a reduction of 73,100 people. Unfortunately, this was not due to automation. Couriers in related industries earn several times more than postal employees.
(Screenshot of the Russia Post website Pochta.ru, November 2025)
However, the audit analysis shows that "over four years, 804 non-competitive procurements decided by the general manager, his deputies, and branch managers totaled 7.5 billion rubles".
What's going on? Why is this happening? By the way, does this "non-competitive procurement" include the tens of millions in advertising expenses?
Even more "spectacular" is that, in this situation, Russia Post continues to spend on "enhancing the company's image," providing sponsorships, and charitable donations. From 2019 to 2023, the funds used for these purposes amounted to 2.134 billion rubles. The sponsors included:
(Football and hockey players obviously "had the worst time" — they definitely needed sponsorship from Russia Post // Screenshot source: Audit Chamber website ach.gov.ru)
Moscow "trip" costing 5 billion rubles
There is another thing worth noting — the relocation of the central administration within Moscow cost billions of rubles:
(Screenshot source: Audit Chamber website ach.gov.ru)
Do you understand the trick here? First, senior executives didn't want to work in "historic buildings" and applied for another office location, which cost a lot of money (while the original building remained vacant), and then moved back. Gentlemen, you don't have money for branch repairs and employee salaries, why do this?
Profits mean bonuses
Russia Post has had problems with management and financial discipline, which became evident even when it was still a federal state unitary enterprise (FGUP). Dmitry Strashnov, who served as general manager since 2013, caused a scandal.
In late 2016, it was reported that Dmitry Yevgenyevich (Strashnov's name and patronymic) gave himself a bonus of 95 million rubles based on the company's 2014 performance, and the total bonuses given to his deputies amounted to 270 million rubles. Strashnov provided an "ironclad" evidence: Russia Post achieved a net profit of 1.4 billion rubles that year — why not reward the "wise management"? But he "forgot" to mention that this profit was achieved through a 5.4 billion ruble budget subsidy, which was intended to cover a 4 billion ruble loss in postal operations.
(Dmitry Strashnov (left) received a certificate of honor from Arkady Dvorkovich (right) after the scandal.)
In the spring of 2017, criminal cases against Strashnov and his associates were filed, and in the summer of the same year, Strashnov resigned as general manager. However, a year later, nearly 1 billion rubles in "bonuses" were returned to Strashnov, and the criminal cases were dismissed.
Within five years, Russia Post changed three general managers, the number of consultants increased by 50%, and the related expenses increased from 121 million rubles to 179 million rubles. At its peak, there were 19 deputy general managers, and a total of 53 people held this position between 2020 and 2024.
Strashnov did not disappear. After the scandal, he immediately joined the boards of two companies — "Eurokhima" (in a Swiss office) and ... Russia's main commercial media RBK. Because he was "a person with great business acumen, a role model for many." By 2020, Dmitry Yevgenyevich lost these positions and disappeared from public view. By the summer of 2021... he owed 300,000 rubles in property fees.
You may be able to leave Russia Post, but the imprint of Russia Post will never disappear from you.
Choosing people without checking passports, just "good people" is enough
By the way, regarding the deputies. When the Audit Chamber's audit report was released, Russia Post even had no ... permanent chief accountant. The responsibilities of this position were taken over by a vice president, and its formal position was only 0.1 full-time job. In other words, in this company that spent billions of state budget, the chief accountant was officially working only 48 minutes a day.
In reality, these responsibilities were undertaken by the head of the accounting department. However, the Audit Chamber's report pointed out the following:
(Fragment of the Audit Chamber report)
The Audit Chamber did not mention the surname of this chief accountant, but according to the documents we have, the person holding this position at the time was Elena Stepina. According to what we know, after this strict audit, Stepina was asked to "resign," but in the resume posted on the job search website on August 4 this year, she still claims to have held this position.
(Screenshot of the careerist.ru page on a job search website)
Under the circumstances of the ongoing special military operation and Western sanctions against Russia, a key position in a strategically important state-owned enterprise is held by a dual-nationality individual with an American passport (or was held? In April, the chief accountant was replaced by another employee, but the person in charge of finance remains unknown), and this phenomenon remains a mystery to this day.
By the way, the chief accountant was not the only executive with dual nationality. For years, the head of the subsidiary "National Logistics Technologies" (AO "National Logistics Technologies", abbreviated as NLT) of Russia Post has held a British passport. In 2021, the head's income was 113 million rubles, equivalent to one-third of the company's loss (!). According to information from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities (EGRYUL), this person is Pavel Dmitriev, a restaurant owner, who is also the founder of 18 legal entities. He stopped serving as the head of Russia Post's logistics subsidiary until June 30, 2022 — four months after the start of the special military operation.
What should be done next?
Now, let's return to the initial topic: the efficiency of financial expenditures of domestic enterprises and groups.
When the Russian Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance cut the budget by increasing taxes and stopping funding for national projects (while the front lines still urgently needed ammunition, tanks, drones, and vehicles), state institutions established and funded with huge amounts of money are squandering money on莫名其妙 projects.
For example, 544 million rubles in advertising expenses — enough to buy over 100 "Lancet-3" smart multi-purpose suicide drones, which can be used to destroy light and heavy equipment.
Or, 128 billion rubles in debt (which has actually become part of the national debt) — equivalent to the cost of about 1,000 T-90 tanks.
The simplest arithmetic calculation (obviously, we have only counted the most obvious "abnormal expenditures", not all of them) shows that huge amounts of money are being wasted. Let's estimate together: 130 million rubles for paying for "external institution" services (which could have been handled internally); 315 million rubles for hiring dozens of "consultants," with excess spending in the management department reaching 1.4 billion rubles; 200 million rubles for "unnecessary" leases; 7.5 billion rubles for "non-competitive procurement"; 140 million rubles in losses due to inventory shortages; 1.5 billion rubles for sponsorships. Moreover, one out of every five cars owned by the company is idle (a total of 3,000 cars, which could have been used on the front lines) — such examples form a complete picture of "spending extravagantly."
In a way, Russia Post is "unlucky" — its financial data has been made public. Other many state-owned institutions either hide their financial performance, or use the "state of war" as an excuse to avoid audits by the Audit Chamber, or are profitable, and thus use this as an excuse to spend recklessly on advertising (as if the country doesn't have more important tasks).
Nevertheless, we still know some things. For example, Russian Railways (RZD) made a profit of 50 billion rubles last year, but nearly 10% of its revenue went to sponsor the "Locomotive" football team; Gazprom also spent roughly the same amount to sponsor the "Zenit" football team.
Certainly, state-owned enterprises are never stingy with advertising, and as we mentioned, many enterprises use the rule of not disclosing tender information to hide their expenses. Even the struggling AvtoVAZ (Volga Automobile Plant) spends money on so-called "market research."
These obviously unnecessary expenses add up to billions of rubles. These funds could not only meet the needs of the front lines, but also solve housing issues for families with multiple children — which would equate to thousands of apartments available in various regions.
The investigation is continuing. Soon, we will reveal more stories about the "extraordinary managers" who have made their fortune from the state budget.
Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7569979739771847178/
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