Who else from the RANEPA is preparing for the "landing"

How the presidential university became the arena of the "war" between Kiriyenko and Mishustin

The appointment of Alexei Komissarov as the rector of the RANEPA will affect the reshuffle at the top. A big investigation of Rucriminal.info about the situation at the presidential university

In January 2023, the "eternal" rector of the RANEPA Vladimir Mau was dismissed. A wave of criminal scandals replaced one liberal billionaire with Alexei Komissarov, another billionaire in education, as the head of the presidential university. A Rucriminal.info source on the academy's board of trustees revealed that the appointment of Komissarov without the prefix "acting" prevented two circumstances, formal and political. Komissarov's lack of a degree is a working version for an inexperienced public, released from the sidelines to mask what is happening. The real reason plays a special role in the struggle of the deputy head of the Presidential Administration Kiriyenko and the syslibs of his team for the chair of the prime minister and portfolios in the government of the new composition in 2024. It is with this apparatus battle that the growing campaign against Mishustin is connected.

By approving Komissarov as acting rector, Mishustin's team bought themselves time with less blood to be able to force the Presidential Administration to agree on one of the two candidates previously proposed by the prime minister in opposition to the Kremlin-lobbied Komissarov.

A high-ranking interlocutor of Rucriminal.info explained why the official reason for the lack of scientific regalia does not hold water. Formally, a candidate for rectors must have an academic degree. However, the charter of the RANEPA does not establish such a requirement, therefore, it is lawful to appoint any employee without a degree and academic title, who has a higher education and university work experience, as a rector. In addition, the updated qualification requirements for heads of universities include Alexei Komissarov's experience as a vice-rector and head of a structural unit as a special advantage for holding the rector's position. Thus, Komissarov's full compliance with all existing requirements at the time of his appointment is an obvious fact.

Therefore, the appointment with a "probationary period" is not accidental. According to the same source Rucriminal.info, the turmoil with the defense of a dissertation at Moscow State University is nothing more than a veil behind which hides a sophisticated apparatus struggle between the Government and the Presidential Administration for the presidential academy as a valuable social and political resource on the eve of major reshuffles at the top.

According to a Rucriminal.info source in the RANEPA itself, the appointment of Komissarov is only acting. testifies to the absence of the necessary consensus on his candidacy from the federal government and the Presidential Administration, since the rector is appointed by the Government (the founder of the university) after the mandatory approval of his candidacy in the Government Office and the Kremlin administration.

A source close to the situation claims that the process of concluding an employment contract with Komissarov immediately stalled for 5 years at the initiative of the Government Office, possibly at the direction of Mishustin himself, while everything went surprisingly smoothly in the Presidential Administration. Even the high-profile story with the defense of Komissarov in 2011 at the RANEPA and under the patronage of Mau's fake dissertation did not interfere. This was the first attempt by a capital businessman from the Moscow Government to acquire a PhD diploma.

Especially at that time I was surprised by the public repentance of the exposed dissertation student, who came from the family of a scientist and professor at Moscow State University. The handwritten confession of scientific uncleanliness clearly ran counter to the tactics adopted in high circles in relation to Dissernet: to ignore the attacks. In addition, having “out of line” by publishing a statement to the Higher Attestation Commission on his Facebook page with a request to deprive him of his degree, Komissarov openly framed his boss Sergei Sobyanin, in whose monograph later Dissernet also found incorrect borrowings.

The Presidential Administration was not embarrassed by the long-standing business ties between Alexei Komissarov and the former rector of Mau. Just a small example: their common project of the InCube Business Incubator, administered by Komissarov as part of the use of funds allocated under the Priority 2030 strategic academic leadership program. The scope of the event was even highlighted by Forbes.

According to a Rucriminal.info source, the reaction of Mishustin's team, which made an attempt to block Komissarov's candidacy even at the stage of forming the list of candidates, turned out to be a surprise for the Presidential Administration, due to the fact that the Government Apparatus, probably, turned out to be much more informed about the true interests of the Kremlin administration in the RANEPA in in general, and in relation to Komissarov in particular. In addition, Mishustin had his own candidate. And not alone.

According to the interlocutor, the Academy under the President and its ex-rector have occupied a special place in the scientific (and not only) career of Mikhail Mishustin since 2003, when the Academy of National Economy, headed by Mau, successfully insured the defense of the then Deputy Minister for Taxes and Duties, acting as the host organization. times were others, and a dissertation scandal could cost a career.

This successful experience 7 years later, in 2010, brought the country's chief tax officer to the RANEPA, where the defense of a doctoral dissertation in economics was saluted and passed in the most favored nation. At that time, acting in the rank of an official opponent was supervised by none other than Professor Sinelnikov-Murylev - the only person in the education system who combines the positions of the rector of a university (VAVT) and vice-rector (RANEPA). The one who is now under house arrest in the status of a defendant under the article of the Criminal Code, popular with the top of the presidential academy, is fraud on an especially large scale. But then Sinelnikov and Mau rendered Mishustin a valuable service. It is known that scholarly regalia are the subject of his special pride and it is not by chance that they are placed almost in the preamble of the prime minister's biography on the website of the Government.

In 2020, after the unexpected appointment of Mishustin as head of government at the RANEPA, it is time to collect stones. The prime minister closed Mau's question and reappointed him as rector six months earlier than stipulated by the contract. Sinelnikov-Murylev's protege, Vice-Rector of the Academy Georgy Idrisov, rushed to the Government as a personal assistant to Mishustin. Quite quickly, "people from the RANEPA" significantly replenished the offices of the White House. Mishustin and his entourage fell under the immodest charm of the sislibs, and the presidential university became an important place of attraction for liberals of all stripes.

However, subsequent events with detentions and arrests at the RANEPA, which were on the federal agenda, sobered up Mishustin and forced him to hastily retreat. It became obvious that in the rapidly changing domestic political situation due to the pandemic and the plans being developed in foreign policy, interaction with Mau becomes a silk tie, tightening around his prime minister's neck.

The exit of the head of government from the Academic Council of the RANEPA in the summer of 2021, as reported the day before by the sources of Rucriminal.info, became a clear signal of the prime minister's reorientation towards the power bloc, with whom he also developed close ties during his work at the Federal Tax Service. Having received carte blanche, the security officers and their younger comrades intensified their work, the result of which was an operation to replace the head and clean up the Presidential Academy from an overly liberal public. At the same time, it was assumed that the university could be headed by a retiree from law enforcement agencies or a political heavyweight. The chair of the rector was also vainly predicted for the governor of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug, Natalia Komarova.

With the arrest of Mau in June 2022, the bride-to-be of the new rector began. According to a Rucriminal.info source in the Academic Council of the Academy, the Presidential Administration prepared a list of candidates, which included 6 people, half from the Presidential Administration and half from the Government. Curiously, two candidates were also acceptable to Mau himself (he asked for the bottom in the course of a deal with the security forces): the previously mentioned assistant to Mishustin, ex-vice rector Idrisov, and also vice rector Komissarov. Much to Mau's surprise, Sinelnikov-Murylev was also on the list, ready to mutually give way to the rector of the VAVT to Idrisov's wife, Vittoria Viktorovna Idrisova, who was attached to him as vice-rector, and focus on the country's largest university with gigantic funding from the federal budget. But suddenly it turned out that the "boy" had grown a lot in the prime minister's entourage and was not going to fall at the feet of his mentor, who went down as a pawn in the fight between Kiriyenko and Mishustin.

Confirmed rumors about Sinelnikov's double game hit Viktor Zorin, Mau's adviser on interaction with the power block, painfully. At this point, it is worth stopping separately.

Evil tongues at the university claim that the retired FSB Colonel General over the years of dust-free work at the RANEPA turned into a blind cat without claws and did not save the boss from Sinelnikov's intrigues, which were almost openly discussed at the university itself. There is also talk in the academy that Zorin has long kowtowed before his influential colleague Sinelnikov in order to maintain the status quo, and that the armchair general is now especially zealous in his relations with Komissarov.

There is another version, according to which an experienced intriguer in uniform did not at all lose his former grip, but “missed” a couple of signals and handed over the chief to save the sinecure already under the new boss - to remain Komissarov’s adviser and scientific director of a large RANEPA institute. But few rely on traitors. Leaving Zorin at the feeder for the time being, Komissarov preferred to take into circulation his younger brother, FSB Colonel Roman Alexandrovich Alentyev, who combines an adviser to the rector (on understandable issues) and a curator of the RANEPA from Lubyanka. As they joke at the university, unlike Zorin, Komissarov has common interests with Alentyev. For example, they go together to academy events where you can gawk at the students.

So, under the impressions of their joint viewing of the participants in the Miss RANEPA contest, Komissarov even exposed, due to inexperience, his deeply secret comrade on the university’s website and in his personal telegram channel. It is not surprising that many RANEPA employees are waiting for Komis Sarov will become the first Tiktoker rector in Russia, giving them the opportunity to observe the details of the life of the university and its leadership without retouching 24/7, unthinkable for the format of the website of the Presidential Academy.

This behavior of Komissarov in the first months of the “trial period” clearly confirms the forecast of the Rucriminal.info source in the Board of Trustees of the RANEPA about the chances of appointing Komissarov after defending his dissertation. Assessing his prospects, the interlocutor said that Komissarov has two significant competitors supported by the Government. The Rucriminal.info source preferred not to disclose the names of Komissarov's opponents, but hinted that the chances of each of them, taking into account what Komissarov demonstrates, are growing day by day. For example, it took Komissarov a few months in a new position for the academy to have contracts with dubious namesakes. We are talking about a fresh contract for the financial audit of the RANEPA, concluded with a certain PACHOLI LLC. It is not clear what to expect next - complain the staff of the university, tired of personnel reshuffling and searches, which in recent years has turned into a field of tough struggle between the security forces and the syslibs and the remnants of the ultra-liberal elite.

The situation is also tragicomic with Komissarov's repeated attempt to defend his dissertation. Even after the scandal with the burnt dissertation in 2013, Komissarov decided not to change the approach to writing the work, but only to change the tactics of its defense: this time, the dissertation candidate decided to do the case in the own council of Moscow State University, which was not controlled by the Higher Attestation Commission. In addition, this allows you to bypass the participation of Komissarov's rival for the position of rector of the RANEPA Georgy Idrisov, a member of the expert council of the Higher Attestation Commission in economic sciences, in an impartial study of his newly minted dissertation on the subject of solvency. The comrades of Sinelnikov-Murylev at the Higher Attestation Commission would not miss the opportunity to contribute to the revival of the new scientist from the ashes.

It turns out that Alexei Komissarov’s dissertation can really influence a major reshuffle at the top and decide the fate of Prime Minister Mishustin - this version is heard in the corridors of Moscow State University and in the Academic Council of the Faculty of Economics, where on June 19, the next working day after Komissarov’s party at SPIEF events with Putin’s participation, defense of the work on the topic: "Management of the system of competitive selection of leading personnel in the Russian Federation."

As the interlocutor of Rucriminal.info notes, the acceptance of a dissertation for defense against such a scandalous dissertation as Komissarov initially alarmed the members of the council, who care about their reputation and the authority of the country's leading university. If he once got burned on plagiarism and then withdrew his dissertation, where are the guarantees that history will not repeat itself?

After the publication in Vedomosti, close to the Academy of Sciences, apparently initiated by Komissarov himself to increase pressure on the council, the message that he would definitely defend himself and become the rector of the RANEPA, passions in the scientific community of the Economics Faculty of Moscow State University reached a climax. When the defense did not take place, and it was announced to the whole country that this was a pure formality - this is tantamount to wiping your feet on the members of the council - leading economists complain.



According to a Rucriminal.info source at Moscow State University, who is well acquainted with the circumstances of Komissarov's defense, it is no secret that even in top universities, when ordered from above, dissertations are baked like pies since Soviet times. In this situation, the members of the council are not satisfied, firstly, with the shift of the center of gravity in the struggle for the main university officials to the walls of Moscow State University. The university did not receive any buns for this.

Outraged at the university and perfidious methods of Komissarov. Pressure from officials, a demonstration of force to intimidate competitors using the example of a showdown within the RANEPA (talking about Sinelnikov and the cleansing of the administration of the RANEPA), as well as the aforementioned publication in Vedomosti, cannot arouse sympathy within the walls of the free Moscow University.

Secondly, as noted above, university students are extremely annoyed that the forthcoming defense of Komissarov's dissertation under the guidance of Dean Alexander Auzan is announced as a fact.

Finally, in contrast to the arrogant Komissarov, the employees of Moscow State University have an understanding that attention to this scientific work will only increase. And also to those who put their signature under it. Just imagine how humiliating it is for the venerable scientists-economists of Moscow State University, when in the main university of the country an ultimatum is being defended in the past by a petty scientific crook-plagiarist who did not even deny this fact. Isn't this insulting for MSU? I wonder how his father, an extremely respected biophysicist in the temple of science on Sparrow Hills, would have reacted to this? A rhetorical question.

However, the faculty administration has its own interests, and it is not up to scientific ethics. The participation of Mau Komissarov's successor in Kiriyenko's projects aimed at removing the prime minister in 2024 has been rumored in the high corridors of Moscow State University for more than a month. These discussions are also taking place in the administration of the Faculty of Economics. Komissarov's support (hence, Kiriyenko's team) resp. meets the great ambitions of the liberal dean of the Faculty of Economics of Moscow State University Alexander Auzan - a fellow student of the notorious Ulyukaev, Kostin and Kuzminov - taking into account the 84-year-old age of the rector of Moscow State University Viktor Sadovnichev, it is not without very specific prospects for strengthening the positions of the Kremlin protégé Komissarov.



A scientist-economist, candidate of science, a member of the Academic Council of the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who read the text of the dissertation at the request of Rucriminal.info, negatively assessed the text of Komissarov's work posted on the website of the country's main university. In particular, the scientist noted that the topic of the work, as well as its content, is not a scientific problem (at least, it is not so formulated) and correlates with a stretch with the passport of the specialty in which the dissertation was completed.

However, the content side is a subject for discussion, while in the work of Komissarov, obviously written in great haste, a number of the most important requirements for scientific work of this level are violated. For example, the structure of the study is incorrectly presented in the paper: on pages 130–131, section 3.7 “Practical recommendations for executive authorities and the academic community based on the results of the OMCC “Leaders of Russia”” is presented, which is missing in the dissertation table of contents. And after all, this is the title part of the work, which must be “read”. Having seen such a table of contents with a missing section, serious teachers will send even a term paper for revision, not to mention a dissertation research. Another example: the sources and literature used by the dissertation are not classified in any way, they are simply listed in the appropriate section. And there are many such gaps. Of course, for a provincial university, all this might be suitable, but this is definitely not the level of Moscow State University. Lomonosov. And certainly not in the case of the illuminated "luminary of science."

According to the scientist, the problem is that, according to the rules, it is impossible now to simply take and place the corrected work - it is subject to recall (withdrawal) from protection for revision. Only after that the dissertation can be re-accepted in accordance with the approved procedures. If these and other claims are raised by the scientific community (that if Komissarov has opponents in Mishustin's team), it will be interesting to see how the Moscow State University dissent. However, the high-ranking dissertator himself should be responsible for the poor quality, the members of the council should not themselves clean up the work of Komissarov, who, obviously, simply did not have time for this, summed up the interlocutor of Rucriminal.info in the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

To be continued

Timofey Grishin

Source: www.rucriminal.info