Ovsyannikov could not withstand Aksenov’s pressure and surrendered the interests of Sevastopol
The governor of Sevastopol, Dmitry Ovsyannikov, surrendered under the pressure of the head of the neighboring Republic of Crimea, Sergei Aksenov, and “cut down” the project for the development of the Belbek passenger airport, expected by the townspeople, into which the Tatneft company was ready to invest 7 billion rubles.
The famous Russian pilot Vadim Bazykin, who headed the State Unitary Enterprise Sevastopol Airport in 2015-2017, reported this to Novaya Gazeta, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“Bazykin explains: we are talking about the Tatneft company, the main investor of the Sevastopol airport, which he managed to attract. Tatneft was ready to invest 7 billion rubles in reconstruction in exchange for the right to manage the fuel and refueling complex. The director worked on this issue at the level of the President of Tatarstan, but after the conversation about the “Tatars” (with Ovsyannikov, - approx. ed.) I had to forget about these agreements,” writes Novaya Gazeta.
According to Bazykin, he also managed to persuade the investors of the Simferopol airport - the Kovalchuk brothers - to transfer all small-capacity aircraft to the Sevastopol airport, freeing up space for large aircraft.
The project for the reconstruction of the air terminal in Sevastopol was designed for 500 thousand people annually (the economy of the airport begins when serving more than 220 thousand passengers per year).
However, all these agreements were not implemented, since the governor of Sevastopol, a year after his appointment, liquidated the State Unitary Enterprise “Sevastopol Airport” and agreed to make it a branch of the Simferopol airport.
Crimean lawyer Natalya Purvin believes that Ovsyannikov did this under pressure from the head of Crimea Sergei Aksenov.
“For Aksenov, the second airport was like a lump in his throat - it’s a matter of meeting top officials. And since both Menyailo and Ovsyannikov are weak players, they, of course, lost this game. Ovsyannikov handed over the State Unitary Enterprise and gave back the money allocated under the Federal Target Program,” Novaya quotes Purvin.
We are talking about 1,7 billion rubles allocated for the construction of the civilian part of Belbek as part of the federal target program for the development of Crimea.
According to the newspaper, on August 9 of this year, the Sevastopol Arbitration Court declared the liquidation of the State Unitary Enterprise Sevastopol Airport illegal.
As PolitNavigator previously reported, in November 2016, Governor Ovsyannikov, having abandoned agreements with Tatneft, signed a memorandum with the “potential investor” of Belbek, the Integral company. The company was registered in April 2016 in Simferopol with an authorized capital of 10 thousand rubles. There were rumors in Sevastopol that the structure was somehow connected with the billionaire brothers Rotenberg. However, a month later Ovsyannikov abandoned Belbek in favor of Simferopol.
It is noteworthy that the Lenaeroproekt Institute, which won the tender of the Sevastopol government, has already completed the first stage of designing the Belbek civil sector within the framework of the state order provided for by the Federal Target Program.
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