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In Russia’s Chelyabinsk Region, a series of court cases against a member of the local elite are following an increasingly familiar pattern: after years of seemingly willful neglect, authorities are filing corruption charges against wealthy individuals whose political ties once protected them from prosecution.
On Oct. 24, Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office filed a new lawsuit against Forbes-listed businessman Konstantin Strukov, along with his daughters. United Russia member Strukov, the now-former owner of YUGK (Yuzhuralzoloto Group of Companies), served in the Chelyabinsk Region’s parliament from 2000-2025, rising to the role of deputy speaker. The case against him was filed in the Plast City Court, according to a report by the Russian outlet RBC.
Prosecutors are demanding that Strukov and his family transfer property worth 1.4 billion rubles ($18.8 million) to the state and that an additional 3.5 billion rubles ($43.9 million) be recovered, as investigators say they were obtained through corrupt means.
This is the second major claim made against Strukov this month alone. Last week, the same court ordered him to pay 3.9 billion rubles ($48.9 million) in compensation for environmental damage caused by an accident at the Svetlinsky gold deposit in April 2024. According to investigators, a dam burst at the site, releasing waste from a gold extraction plant. Arsenic contamination spread across roughly 330,000 square meters, causing damage estimated at nearly 4 billion rubles ($50.2 million) — which the company failed to compensate.
The government’s struggle with the private owner over his assets has been playing out publicly since the summer. In July, a court confiscated Strukov’s shares in YUGK and affiliated companies, as well as other assets, ruling that they had been acquired illegally. Following the decision, Strukov was removed from his position as president of the management company.
According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, Strukov used his position in government to unlawfully gain control over Yuzhuralzoloto and 10 other companies registered in the name of trusted associates — including his daughter, Swiss citizen Alexandra Strukova. Another daughter, Evgenia Strukova, was also named as a defendant alongside her sister in the environmental damages case.
Strukov ranks 78th on Russia’s Forbes list, with an estimated fortune of $1.9 billion. He gained control of Yuzhuralzoloto in 1997, when he headed the enterprise under Governor Pyotr Sumin. The company was later transformed into an open joint-stock company. After bankruptcy proceedings, it came fully under Strukov’s control as Yuzhuralzoloto Group of Companies.
The Yuzhuralzoloto case has become one of the clearest examples of the new wave of expropriations in 2025, said anti-corruption expert Ilya Shumanov in a comment to The Insider:
“The Prosecutor General's Office's lawsuit to seize the assets of a company that is one of the top 10 gold producers in Russia shows a few key trends. For one, this is the first time that a ‘first-tier’ company has been targeted. Its owner, Konstantin Strukov, ranks 78th in the [Russian] Forbes list and controls assets that the prosecutor's office has valued at almost 200 billion rubles ($2.5 billion). Secondly, Strukov has the status of a regional heavyweight politician — he is the deputy chairman of the Chelyabinsk Region Legislative Assembly. In 2025, law enforcement agencies are increasingly targeting individuals like these — big businessmen with parliamentary mandates.
And finally, the third trend is corruption as a universal basis for confiscation. Most of the lawsuits filed by the Prosecutor General's Office this year (ten since the beginning of the year) have been filed under this pretext. Another eight were filed on the grounds of ‘illegal possession,’ including the possession of strategic assets. This means that the Yuzhuralzoloto case has become a kind of distillation of the practices of 2025: law enforcement agencies are moving from isolated cases to a systematic redistribution of property under the slogan of fighting corruption.”