Former Rosnano top manager sentenced to 15 years in absentia on embezzlement charges

A Moscow court has sentenced former Rosnano top manager Irina Rapoport in absentia to 15 years in prison on charges of embezzlement and commercial bribery, the Russian business daily Kommersant reported.

The court also fined Rapoport 300 million rubles and ordered the confiscation of assets worth 85 million rubles.

Prosecutors allege that Rapoport and her co-defendants siphoned funds from Rosnano between 2012 and 2015 through companies they controlled, arranging loan and guarantee agreements with the Russian bank Peresvet, then moving money out through fictitious contracts and keeping it for themselves.

The court assessed damages at 1.676 billion rubles and granted the state corporation’s claim to recover that amount.

Rapoport’s defense argues that the charges rest on false testimony from a co-defendant who reached a cooperation agreement with investigators and received a three-year sentence in February 2025.

Former Rusnano head Anatoly Chubais published a statement in May 2026 describing the criminal prosecution of the company’s former executives as “repression” and “a mockery of the law.” Rusnano has since filed multiple lawsuits against Chubais and several of his former colleagues. The claims center on losses tied to the Plastic Logic project, an effort to develop flexible tablet computers for schoolchildren.

Chubais led Rusnano from 2008 until stepping down in December 2020. He left Russia in March 2022. After Chubais’s departure, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that authorities had uncovered “an enormous financial hole” at the nanotechnology corporation Chubais had headed for many years.