4 March 2026
An anti-corruption lawsuit against the former chairman of the regional court could lead to the review of many decisions made during his tenure
by Leonid Nikitinsky
Source: Novaya gazeta
On February 25, Novaya gazeta‘s website published a piece by Aleksandr Romanov titled ‘100 Hectares, Breguet and Other “Tales”‘. It’s a review of criminal cases and so-called anti-corruption lawsuits involving officials who amassed fortunes during the governorship of Aleksandr Tkachov in Krasnodar region.
Tkachev held this post from 2001 to 2015 and until May 2018, notably, was the Russian Minister of Agriculture. During those years, the Krasnodar Regional Court was headed by Aleksandr Chernov (1994-2019), who was highly influential in the judicial community.
A luxuriant bush of anticorruption cases and lawsuits grew from a single ‘seed’, which was planted by Igor Krasnov, the current chairman of the Russian Supreme Court, during his time as its General Prosecutor. The result was a suit by the General Prosecutor’s Office on sending property worth 13 billion rubles belonging to Aleksandr Chernov to state revenue. For the sake of objectivity, this suit was moved to Krasnogorsk in the Moscow region, and in August of last year was satisfied.
Corruption and raiding connected with agricultural and resort lands in the Kuban and in Russia’s South as a whole are very tightly intertwined with the judicial system.
Even in instances of strongarm and mobster land seizures, as happened in the village of Kushchevskaya, ownership of them was formalised, with the help of judicial decisions, that involved various legal infractions.
On 27 November 2025, the Higher Qualification Commission of Judges (VKKS) approved a decision to terminate the status of the retired judge and ex-chairman of the Krasnodar Regional Court. As a result, Chernov was stripped of guarantees as a so-called ‘special subject,’ so that a criminal case could be opened against him without VKKS consent. At present, Chernov is abroad, but that is no obstacle to a verdict in absentia (we know of a great many similar examples with respect to opposition leaders who have left).
A verdict against Chernov (as against other court chairman who so far have merely lost anti-corruption suits) could create a precedent and require the reexamination of many decisions in criminal and civil cases in the investigation of which these chairmen might have intervened directly or indirectly.
In addition to the material by our Kuban-based author Romanov, I would suggest that readers of Novaya revisit my article ‘Leviathan-South’ (see issue No. 49 on May 14, 2018). It was the result of a trip prompted by a letter from former farmer Andrei Kalinin and a visit to Krasnodar region in spring 2018 as part of a delegation from the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights. Kalinin’s story includes a whole series of criminal cases and civil disputes, which as a whole confirm its nature as a hostile takeover, but here I will recount it briefly, omitting many details.
Kalinin, who in the 1990s managed sugar supplies from Kuban to the Urals, became the leaseholder in 2004 of 2,300 hectares of land belonging to the former Kavkaz collective farm. Legally, the transaction – which resulted from the farm’s bankruptcy – was formalized as an agreement between 512 shareholders in the land of the former Kavkaz and Abris-Agro, an LLC created specifically for this purpose. Kalinin successfully cultivated rice, an arduous business with which few were willing to bother in the early 2000s.
In 2009, a local resident and trained lawyer named Loginova appeared in the villages of the former Kavkaz collective farm. She attempted to buy up land from the shareholders who had leased the plots to Abris-Agro LLC, but the court ruled that the company’s right of first refusal had not been observed. Loginova then entered into ‘preliminary purchase agreements’ for land with a group of breakaway shareholders, on terms highly favorable to them. These agreements entailed, among other things, the granting of powers of attorney and wills naming her as beneficiary.
Loginova inherited one share on these grounds, which gave her the right to purchase other plots of land. She also gained the right to formally transfer ownership to herself under the ‘preliminary agreements’ concluded earlier. By offering a high price by local standards, she quickly became the owner of about half the land of the former collective farm.
The will contradicted the law on the turnover of agricultural land. Nevertheless, the transaction was certified by the chair of the regional Notary Chamber, Galina Chernova – incidentally, the former wife of the chairman of the regional court.
It became clear why the Moscow company behind Loginova’s actions paid such a high price per share when energy workers began installing pylons for the Tikhoretsk-Krym transmission line on the land in question. In such cases, the owner retains the title to the land but receives substantial financial compensation. Ultimately, the shares of the former Kavkaz collective farm ended up in structures presumed to be associated with the then-governor Tkachov.
Abris-Agro filed a lawsuit against the Federal Grid Company of the Unified Energy System in the regional arbitration court. In November 2014, minutes from a 2005 stakeholder meeting were submitted to the court, where stakeholders allegedly agreed to the building of the pylons without additional conditions.
But no such meeting was ever held, as revealed by dozens of interviews held as part of the pre-investigation inquiry. The forged copy of the meeting minutes was for some reason presented in court in an envelope from the Russian Special Communications Service, but no one has seen the original. Abris-Agro only learned of this ‘meeting’ from the court ruling — it was not once mentioned during the long litigation.
The stubborn Kalinin has a collection of no fewer than 25 refusals to open a criminal case regarding the forgery of this key document.
In February 2018, the investigative authorities once again declined to open a case on the falsification of evidence (Art. 303 of the Russian Criminal Code) citing the expiration of the statute of limitations.
However, the civil dispute has not been resolved; indeed, it cannot be resolved without a clear answer to the question of whether the minutes from 2005 are genuine or forged. Kalinin never ceased appealing the decisions issued in the dispute, and the crime committed is too flagrant and indisputable — this can be asserted because the ruling to dismiss the case on non-exonerating grounds went unchallenged. Besides the elements of Article 303 of the Criminal Code, for which the statute of limitations has expired, here we also find the elements of large-scale fraud committed by a group of individuals, some of whom were close to the highest ranking investigative authorities.
Back in 2018, while preparing the earlier publication, I understood that Kalinin had no chance. But today his story, teeming with unlawful court decisions, could indeed become part of the ‘thicket’ of criminal cases that grew out of the anti-corruption lawsuit against Aleksandr Chernov.
Translated by Nina dePalma, Annabel Pedgley, Marian Schwartz
