‘Things look very complicated and unclear at Uralvagonzavod. What is happening there now looks strikingly similar to what Kakha Bendukidze did at Uralmashzavod, and this turned out to be a recipe for disaster,’ Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel said at a recent press conference in Yekaterinburg.

In fact, Uralvagonzavod’s GD Nikolai Malykh was fired and Gazkomerz BOD Chairman Oleg Sienko was chosen to succeed him in April 2008.

‘Plenipotentiary Representative of Russian Federation President in Ural Federal District Nikolai Vinnichenko and I have come to an agreement. I do want the President’s representative to see what is going on, and Sienko will have to come up with a report at an anti-crisis committee meeting. Planning to make 23,000 people redundant is a rather bold thing to do. If Nikolai Malykh was still running the enterprise, the plant would keep on working as usual,’ Rossel observed.

The Governor added accusing the former CEO of ineffective management (including buying overpriced machinery) was not what one calls ‘fair play’ on the new CEO’s part.

‘This just isn’t’ fair. One needs to propose the realistic ways out that will let us keep these jobs. This is the kind of argumentation I understand,’ he explained.