Russian investigators said Thursday they had opened two new fraud probes over the construction of a corruption-tainted space centre in the country's Far East.

The Vostochny cosmodrome in the Amur region is one of Russia's most important space projects, designed to reduce reliance on the Baikonur launch site it rents from Kazakhstan to ferry cosmonauts.

But its construction has for years been tainted by multiple controversies including corruption and wage arrears.

Russian authorities have opened dozens of cases over violations during the building of the cosmodrome.

At a government meeting earlier this month President Vladimir Putin complained that the corruption continued, saying "millions" were being stolen.

Investigators said in a statement Thursday that forged documents had led to the theft of 240 million rubles ($3.7 million) between November 2018 and May 2019.

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov has told reporters that the government allocated 91 billion rubles ($1.4 billion) for the construction of Vostochny and 11 billion rubles was stolen.

The government was able to recover 3.5 billion rubles.

The Vostochny cosmodrome was originally supposed to be running manned launches from last year but the grand project has been consistently behind schedule.

Related Links
Military Space News at SpaceWar.com

Tweet

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

Is the US bracing for a space war with Russia and China?
Moscow (Sputnik) Nov 12, 2019
In July, the Russian Defence Ministry lambasted American plans to use space as a theatre of war, condemning Washington for its refusal to engage in the Moscow-Beijing talks on the non-deployment of weapons in space. The US intelligence community (IC) plans to update its assessment of what it described as the space warfare capabilities of Russia and China, Bloomberg reports. The news outlet cited Air Force spokeswoman Christina Hoggatt as saying that the National Intelligence Estimate on the ... read more