Russian woman official caught in corruption escapes to Ukraine

Russian law-enforcement agencies will investigate into reports about the departure of former deputy head of the Russian Ministry of Education, Marina Rakova, to Ukraine in an attempt to escape criminal persecution.

According to sources in law-enforcement agencies, officers did not seize any documents from Rakova after searches, so she could freely leave to Ukraine.

On October 1, it became known that Rakova was charged in absentia with major fraud. The former official was put on the federal wanted list. Prosecutors intend to seek her arrest in absentia, after which Rakova will be put on the international wanted list.

On September 30, it was said that the initiation of a criminal case against the ex-deputy head of the Ministry of Education was related to her activities in the sphere of education.

Earlier it was reported that Rakova became a defendant in the case of embezzlement of more than 50 million rubles. She is charged with fraudulent actions committed in relation to 2019 government contracts in the field of education, the total value of which was more than 150 million rubles.

Marina Rakova faces up to ten years in prison under Paragraph 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code (Large-scale fraud), as well as a fine of up to a million rubles.

Rakova was actively promoting the reform of the education system within the framework of the "Teacher of the Future" federal project. Now she is accused of embezzling about 50 million rubles. However, this amount may increase significantly.

During Rakova's service in the Ministry of Education, the Fund for New Forms of Education Development received as much as 2.837 billion rubles in subsidies. Rakova's letter of resignation from the post of deputy minister was signed in March 2020, but in January 2020, the fund immediately received 1.62 billion rubles. Interestingly, the fund has never received such huge amounts of money from the state neither before nor after Rakova's term in the office. 

The authorities will have to establish how much of the allocated funds were actually spent on the implementation of the "Teacher of the Future" project.

It is worthy of note that after her service at the Ministry for Education, Marina Rakova moved to Russia's largest state-owned bank, Sberbank, and took the position of its vice president.