‘You owe me one’: Russia shelves waste processing plants amid complaints from Rostec about high interest rates

Last year, Vladimir Putin came to the defense of Central Bank chairwoman Elvira Nabiullina when several prominent state corporation managers criticized the country’s high key interest rate. In December 2024, during a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov, Putin publicly inquired about five waste processing plants that Rostec had failed to complete on schedule. “Where are the plants? Rostec was supposed to build them. Did they receive money or not? Where is the money?” the president asked. 

On June 17, 2025, Rostec CEO Sergey Chemezov met with Putin and delivered the bad news: construction of three of the five promised waste processing plants has been frozen. In another nod to Russia’s controversial monetary policies, Chemezov said the work would resume in “better times, when there is ‘cheaper’ money or some help from the state, if possible.” 

Regarding finances, Rostec’s CEO clarified that the company had not received public funds for the construction of these plants. “All were built with private investments, our own funds, and mainly, of course, debts still owed,” he explained. “You owe me one, Mr. Chemezov,” Putin responded. “Unfortunately, yes,” Chemezov answered.

In December 2024, Denis Manturov assured Putin that Rostec successfully replaced a Japanese partner on the construction of a major waste processing plant outside Moscow — “all that remained was to finish construction.” However, during his June 17 meeting with the president, Sergey Chemezov stressed that Rostec began building the waste incineration plants only in 2019. “Due to COVID and then sanctions, all this construction slowed down for us, and only in December 2024 did we deliver the first plant. Another plant is 92-percent complete,” he told Putin.