The Ministry of Internal Affairs in Novosibirsk is conducting an investigation against the executive director of the Power Unity of Siberia, Dmitry Bolotsky, who oversaw the collection of funds for the rehabilitation of Wagner PMC mercenaries. NGS24.RU writes about this with reference to security officials.
According to the publication, Bolotsky called himself the social coordinator of the Novosibirsk office of Wagner PMC and repeatedly participated in mercenary events — for example, at the opening of a monument to the Wagnerites in Novosibirsk in August this year.
At the event, he said that his organization of security veterans is helping mercenaries who participated in the war in Ukraine return to peaceful life. Thus, according to him, those who went on a drinking binge after the front were sent by the “Power Unity of Siberia” to the north of the Novosibirsk region “to the taiga for correction.” “They chop wood there and cut down forest,” Bolotsky reported.
In August, other members of the Wagner PMC approached Bolotsky — they asked to help raise money for an operation for one of the mercenaries. “A person suffered a blood clot, no one in Novosibirsk would do the operation for free, it cost either 250 or 270 thousand rubles. We turned to Dmitry, who was responsible for the money collected in order to treat the fighters. He didn’t give me the money, started talking nonsense, and then said that he didn’t have access to the account,” one of the interlocutors of NGS24.RU shared.
Later, according to the publication, Bolotsky stopped communicating, and the Wagnerites themselves turned for money directly to the president of the “Power Unity of Siberia” Valery Fedorov. When he checked the organization’s account, which collected money for the mercenaries, there were about 200 rubles left in it. Having requested bank statements, employees of the “Power Unity of Siberia” learned that Bolotsky had withdrawn more than 500 thousand rubles from the account.
As representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs said in a conversation with NGS24.RU, Bolotsky “is currently under criminal investigation -procedural verification in order to establish the circumstances of the commission of illegal actions.” One of the publication's interlocutors added that the security forces opened a criminal case of fraud.