Kazakhstan tightens claims against "Roscosmos"

Assets of the main operator of Russian spaceports — the Center for the Operation of Ground-based Space Infrastructure (TSENKI) — have been seized in Kazakhstan, the Russian media reported with reference to the message of the Kazakhstan Bailiff Service. azattyq.org.

President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev

As The Moscow Times website writes, the formal reason for the arrest was a debt of 13,5 billion tenge (almost 30 million dollars) to the joint Kazakh-Russian enterprise Baiterek.

The debt, as it is argued, arose in connection with the assessment of the environmental impact of the Soyuz-5 launch vehicle.

The court of the International Financial Center "Astana" issued a decision on the adoption of coercive measures at the end of November last year.

The Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper writes that the decision may be connected with the sanctions imposed by the West against Moscow. Restrictions were introduced in response to Russia's invasion of neighboring Ukraine.

Representatives of CENKA received a corresponding notice at the end of January 2023, the newspaper reports with a link to the document. The operation center is prohibited from taking material values ​​and assets out of the country, and its head is prohibited from leaving the territory of the republic until the end of the investigation, writes the website kz24.news.

The Ministry of Justice of Kazakhstan did not comment on the message at the time of publication of the news, promising to distribute the information to the mass media "later". On Tuesday, the Informburo.kz site quotes the words of the Minister of Digital Development and Aerospace Industry, Baghdat Musin, according to which he confirmed the information about the collection of a large sum from the Roskosmos subsidiary and the accompanying seizure of the property of TSENKA, located in Kazakhstan. According to these data, the management of TSENKA is now in Kazakhstan and is negotiating with JV Baiterek. As the minister said, it is about a sum "in the region of a billion or two billion roubles."

The website kz24.news notes that the arrest of the center's property was preceded by criticism from the new head of Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, directed at Kazakh colleagues. In particular, Borisov criticized the Kazakh side for postponing the construction of the launch pad by six months.

The joint Kazakh-Russian enterprise Baiterek was created in 2005 for the joint program of space exploration. In particular, it was envisaged to switch to the operation of environmentally friendly launch vehicles at Baikonur instead of Protons, which run on poisonous heptyl. The construction of a new launch pad was planned, but its opening was postponed.

According to the Russian state media, Tsenki is the main operator of Russian spaceports and the largest enterprise in the Roscosmos structure.

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