The Defense Ministry will demand almost 5 billion rubles from RTI corporation (a part of AFK Sistema of Vladimir Yevtushenkov) in the court. The lawsuit was related to claims of the military against fulfillment of the contract on creation of the National Defense Control Center (NDCC) that the Defense Ministry signed with RTI in 2014.
Defense ministry stated claims against the general contractor of construction of the national defense control center.
The Defense Ministry will demand almost 5 billion rubles from RTI corporation (a part of AFK Sistema of Vladimir Yevtushenkov) in the court. The lawsuit was related to claims of the military against fulfillment of the contract on creation of the National Defense Control Center (NDCC) that the Defense Ministry signed with RTI in 2014.
According to information published at the site of the Arbitration Court of Moscow, the Defense Ministry filed a lawsuit against RTI on May 4, the indicated claims amounted almost to 5 billion rubles. Other details including the reasons for filing of the lawsuit are not disclosed at the site. General Director of RTI Igor Bevzyuk announced that the lawsuit did not come to the corporation yet. He said, “Most likely, it is related to disputed about fulfillment of one of the contracts.” Bevzyuk did not explain which contract exactly he meant but said that the corporation kept working “on a number of contracts in the framework of the state defense order.” Yesterday, the Defense Ministry abstained from comments on this topic.
According to a military source, non-fulfillment of the contract of 2014 on creation of NDCC by the corporation served as the direct pretext for filing of the lawsuit. The Defense Ministry decided that RTI that fulfilled functions of the general contractor did not manage to observe the requirements determined by technical specifications. There also appeared questions about the timeframe for fulfillment of the work. According to a source in the military industrial complex, the situation is associated rather with an unregulated situation relate to the expenses borne by RTI in the course of work, “the corporation presents its substantiation of expenses but the military do not accept it and that is why they have turned to the court.” The date of the first meeting is not known yet.
NDCC was put into operation on December 1 of 2014, Sergei Shoigu frequently emphasized that construction of the building and mounting of equipment in the Frunzenskaya Embankment, 20 took a record time of just 333 days. The new center replaced the central command post of the General Staff located in the Znamenka Street, 19 as a more modern and functional structure, a source in the ministry reminded. Since then, everyday activity of structures and units of the Defense Ministry inside of the country and outside of it is commanded exactly from NDCC in the real time more. The headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief is located there too.
RTI was chosen as the general contractor for work on the project due to successful experience of work in the Emergency Situations Ministry: during the period of Shoigu’s work there the corporation created the National Center for Control of Crisis Situations. Work on NDCC was much more serous because increased requirements were stated for storage of information and degree of protection of servers. Control over fulfillment of orders is done through NDCC now, as well as collection and processing of information and tracking of fulfillment of the state defense order and monitoring of the situation that allows mobilization of necessary resources in case of emergency situation.
In 2014, General Director of RTI Sergei Boev (incumbent chair of the Board of Directors of the company) announced that “a unique system for protection of not only technical means of the center but also networks was created” in NDCC “and it actually can prevent any hacker attack now.” NDCC has also embodied some unique technologies, for instance, a multi-service communication node that provides both open and confidential communication practically in all standards. No other difficulties appear in relations between the Defense Ministry and RTI: the corporation does preplanned work on creation of radar stations of high ex-works readiness (they constitute the basis of the ground segment of the system for early warning about a missile attack.
