On the morning of February 5, investigators from the Investigative Committee and the FSB in Altai Krai carried out searches at the homes of several prominent Communist Party figures. State Duma deputy Mariya Prusakova said officers visited Altai regional parliament vice speaker Yury Kropotin, Rubtsovsk-based deputy Andrey Chernobay, her aide Darya Zulina, and several others linked to the party. Kropotin and Chernobay were later detained.
Pro-government Telegram channels reported that both men are suspected of large-scale fraud. According to investigators, the deputies allegedly arranged fictitious jobs for party supporters as legislative aides several years ago and then kept the money allocated for that work. Investigators believe Chernobay may have taken 2.4 million rubles from the budget in this way, while Kropotin is alleged to have received more than 2 million rubles.
Chernobay became a deputy in December 2021, when he inherited a vacant mandate after the death of elected lawmaker Vladimir Belkin. In parliament, he focused on student issues, environmental concerns, and housing and utilities in Rubtsovsk. Formally, deputies are allowed to hire aides using parliamentary funds, and, as the article notes, it is difficult to prove such work was fictitious because aides report directly to the deputy.
Questions about the system for tracking aides’ work had surfaced in Altai before. In 2019, prosecutors inspected the regional legislature and found labor-law violations in the way deputies recorded aides’ working hours, but no criminal cases followed at that time.
A source close to the regional Communist Party committee said the aides had in fact performed their duties and that no corruption scheme existed. Party members also note that the searches extended to people unconnected to deputies’ staffing arrangements, including party newspaper editor Darya Zulina. Supporters of the party say the operation is part of a campaign to weaken the Communists ahead of the regional parliamentary elections scheduled for September 2026.
“The goal was not to find golden toilets, but simply to loudly accuse the Communists and cast a shadow over their reputation. Elections are coming, and the situation in the country is tense,” the Telegram channel Altayskie Kraynosti, which is close to the regional party branch, wrote.
After the 2021 elections, in which the Communists, backed by Smart Voting, won 24% of the vote, took 15 single-mandate districts, and sent Prusakova to the State Duma, the party held one of the largest factions in the regional parliament. Communist deputies blocked the budget and demonstratively ignored the governor’s annual report, forcing United Russia to seek ad hoc alliances with other factions.
Later, the Altai branch of the Communist Party began losing deputies. Some lawmakers were expelled or left on their own, and in November 2025 criminal charges were filed against deputy Lyudmila Klyushnikova and her aide Svetlana Kerber over similar allegations of fictitious employment. The outlet says the same repressive mechanism is now being applied to new targets. Over the weekend, Kropotin was released with restrictions on certain actions, while Chernobay’s court hearing was canceled; his procedural status was not disclosed.