The Main Military Prosecutor’s Office discovered the theft of 620 million rubles allocated for the modernization of the Safe City system – Meduza

During the inspection, the Main Military Prosecutor’s Office discovered signs of fraud in the expenditure of budget funds allocated for research and development work (R&D) for the “Safe City” system. The inspection materials were sent to the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation to initiate a criminal case, RBC writes, citing sources.

The volume of stolen funds, according to the publication’s interlocutors, is estimated at 620 million rubles. “This is almost the full amount that was allocated for research and development,” one of the sources said.

The lead executor of the research work that became the first stage of the project to modernize the “Safe City” is the National Center for Informatization (NCI) of Rostec. The work began in 2020 by order of the Ministry of Emergency Situations. It was supposed to create new technical and legal standards for the “Safe City”, including a regulatory draft federal law.

Lawyer Vladimir Gerasimenko, representing the interests of several interviewed as part of the inspection of NIC employees, told RBC that “the scientific work has been done, the technical assignment has been completed, the acts have been signed by the customer, the money has been paid.” “I admit that the R&D customer’s requirements for the “Safe City” could have changed – especially since the task was set and carried out by some heads of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, and others began to accept it,” he said.

Responses to RBC’s requests to the press service of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Investigative Committee, as well as to the National Research Center, were not received at the time of publication.

The hardware and software complex “Safe City” has existed since 2007. The tasks of the “Safe City” system include collecting and processing data on emergency situations coming from various monitoring systems. Data into the system comes from a variety of sensors, gas analyzers, sensors and video cameras.

The total costs for the development and implementation of the “Safe City” were estimated at 150 billion rubles. The Ministry of Emergency Situations proposed spending another 97 billion rubles to modernize the “Safe City”, but the Ministry of Economy criticized this project due to the high cost.

In 2020, the Ministry of Emergency Situations reported on the launch of the “Safe City” in 12 regions. The system, in particular, operates in Moscow, where, as stated by the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, it allowed, among other things, to track violators of the self-isolation regime during coronavirus restrictions.

In September 2022, the authorities of the Russian regions bordering Ukraine asked the Russian government to allocate additional funds for the implementation of the “Safe City” system.