Russian drone center director arrested on fraud charges
The general director of a Russian state-backed drone development center was arrested and jailed on fraud charges, according to Russian outlets reporting August 25.
Yevgeny Grigoryev, head of the TulaDrone Research and Production Center, was detained in Tula and ordered held for two months by a court on August 14, according to the local outlets Myslo and Tula News.
Grigoryev faces charges under Part 4 of Article 159 of Russia’s Criminal Code, which covers fraud on an especially large scale. Employees at the center reportedly were unaware of his arrest until it became public; Grigoryev had not appeared at work since August 14.
The TulaDrone center opened in late 2025 as part of Russia’s national Unmanned Aircraft Systems project. Tula region Gov. Dmitry Milyaev said last summer that more than 1 billion rubles had gone toward establishing the center, including approximately 700 million rubles in federal funding. The region’s industry minister, Nikolai Elantsev, said the center was expected to sign contracts in 2025 for infrastructure and equipment, then begin production in 2026. Tula region had also planned to allocate an additional 177.2 million rubles in 2025 toward staffing, tools and materials for the facility.
Officials had described the Tula center as one of 10 planned major national hubs for drone development and production.
Grigoryev’s arrest follows a series of similar cases across Russia’s drone industry in recent weeks. In early August, a Moscow court ordered the arrest of Vyacheslav Barbasov and Irakli Khazaliya, the current and former general directors of drone manufacturer Dron Solyushns, on similarly unspecified large-scale fraud charges, according to CNews.
In late July, law enforcement detained the chairman of the board and general director of the Efko group of companies in a separate fraud case tied to drone production.
No further details of the allegations against Grigoryev, including the specific transactions or amounts involved, have been disclosed by Russian authorities or reported by local media.
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Yevgeny Grigoryev, the general director of the TulaDrone Research and Production Center, was arrested on August 14, 2023, in Tula on fraud charges. His arrest was not known to employees until it became public, and he had not been present at work since that date. The TulaDrone center is part of Russia's national drone development initiative, which has seen significant investment.
- Yevgeny Grigoryev was arrested on fraud charges on August 14, 2023.
- The TulaDrone Research and Production Center is part of Russia's national Unmanned Aircraft Systems project.
- Grigoryev's arrest follows similar cases in Russia's drone industry.
- The center received over 1 billion rubles in funding for its establishment.
- Grigoryev had not appeared at work since the date of his arrest.