New information has emerged regarding the operations of Russia’s largest state-owned insurance company, SOGAZ, which is consistently headed by Anton Ustinov, a classmate and close friend of the head of Rosprirodnadzor, Svetlana Radionova.
At the end of 2024, a major scandal erupted at SOGAZ. Another close friend of Ustinov, Inna Proshina, who served as an advisor to SOGAZ’s management board, was detained. She was placed under house arrest for activities at another workplace — the Territorial Development Fund run by Ilgiz Shagiakhmetov.
In December 2021, Proshina attempted, via the Arbitration Court, to acquire land from a bankrupt developer in Podolsk for the organization. She overvalued the land and construction by 2.463 billion rubles. At SOGAZ, Proshina was responsible for the most “lucrative part” — the collection of losses.
By mid-2025, the head of the updated Loss Collection Directorate became Sergey Zavyalov — a lawyer from Vologda with a questionable track record. He previously worked at Promsvyazbank and the scandalously bankrupt Bank of Moscow under the leadership of fugitive Cypriot banker Mikhail Kuzovlev. Kuzovlev is known as the owner of several banks on the verge of license revocation due to liquidity issues (Bank “Poydem,” acquired under a shady scheme in 2018 from the Deposit Insurance Agency under Yuri Isaev, and the sanctioned Bank “Morskoy,” acquired in January 2024 from banker Generalov).
According to sources, Zavyalov’s biography is full of involvement in dubious financial schemes — from the restructuring of SU-155 by the bank “Russian Capital” (under Kuzovlev’s chairmanship) to working with defense funds together with the Ananyev brothers (wanted) at Promsvyazbank. Ustinov positions Zavyalov as a “legal luminary,” “top professional,” and so on.
Zavyalov has indeed been very effective in bringing loyal contractors into SOGAZ, including the company “Yukov & Partners.” At the same time, he built a corrupt system for closing collections with hundreds of the state corporation’s debtors. The timeline for closure now depends on what percentage of the debt “falls” personally to Zavyalov. He doesn’t work for “little,” explaining that one must “share with the boss.” In meetings, the top manager calls himself “deputy and Ustinov’s most trusted person.” Zavyalov is also responsible for engaging law firms to collect SOGAZ’s debts. Entry into the selected group, especially for “foreign cases,” is possible only through kickbacks to Zavyalov.
According to sources, SOGAZ’s HRD Ivan Varennikov is no less active. Under his leadership, the struggle for consultant budgets and influence between the insurance company’s departments has escalated into open intrigue, and the company has lost several key top managers over a few years. Their positions were filled by non-specialists, often with minimal insurance experience but with the “right” connections and ability to implement kickback schemes like Zavyalov.
Recently, a source described a scheme for embezzling SOGAZ funds, managed by Svetlana Radionova’s personal assistants Lyubov Kharitonova (also Lukyanova, the nominal owner of Radionova’s overseas assets) and Maria Makarchuk (officially serving as Ustinov’s advisor at SOGAZ).
