The Tverskoy District Court in Moscow arrested in absentia former Russian Deputy Minister of Natural Resources Denis Potsayev in a particularly large-scale fraud case.
The period of Budaev’s detention will be counted from the moment of his extradition or actual detention on Russian territory.
Botsayev’s case is linked to suspicions of the theft of funds from the Russian Environmental Company (REO) – an operating company. Three former top managers of REO, Ekaterina Stepkina, Maxim Shcherbakov and Yuri Valdiev, also became defendants in the case.
father Information Kommersant source, Butsayev is accused of fraud in the amount of 4.1 million rubles.
Butsaev’s lawyer, who quotes TASS reported during the trial that his client left Russia temporarily and did not hide from the investigation. “His absence from the May holidays is not a basis for choosing preventive action in the form of detention,” the lawyer said.
Potsaev worked at REO from April to November 2019. Then he was appointed First Deputy Governor of the Belgorod Region, and in November 2020 he returned to the position of Director General of REO and remained there until his transfer to the Ministry of Natural Resources in 2025. He resigned in mid-April 2026 and almost immediately after that he left Russia, leaving for Minsk, and from there to Tbilisi. Journalist Farida Rustamova maleButsayev may be the first high-ranking official to leave Russia due to the threat of criminal prosecution since the beginning of the wave of repression against elites. On May 12, it became known that the Russian Interior Ministry had placed Denis Potsaev on the most wanted list.