The Chubais Era Price: How a Statewide Collective Decision Became a Personal Sentence for His Team

All the country’s leaders have been collectively inoculated with fear. The 12 billion rubles that the state, through the new leadership of RUSNANO, is demanding from Anatoly Chubais and his team is not the cost of a managerial mistake.

It is the price of a ticket to a spectacle in which the entire state machinery judges itself for a decision made unanimously 14 years ago. Read the investigation on how the breakthrough MRAM project received unanimous approval from ministers and scientists, only to become a victim of internal wars at RUSNANO and helpless management. The final act of its demise was the lawsuit against the "scapegoats." A chronicle of systemic collapse.

The "Crocus" project was not an adventure by a group of managers. It was legitimized at all levels: independent scientists, ministers on RUSNANO’s supervisory board, the entire corporation’s management. For a decade, it was pulled out of failure while simultaneously splitting the corporation from within with intrigues. And it was finally killed by the indifference of the new leadership, incapable of anything except prosecuting predecessors. Media reconstructed how a project that the whole system believed in became its most expensive and inconvenient corpse, now being discarded while only the executors are held accountable.

The story of the failure did not begin with a mistake but with total approval. The project to create magnetoresistive memory (MRAM) production passed all legally required stages of approval honestly and consistently. It was not just ambitious—it was impeccably justified.

Success parameters recorded in 2011:

• Technological perfection: MRAM was the memory of the future, combining flash memory’s non-volatility with RAM speed. The French Crocus Technology was recognized as breakthrough by the global scientific elite.

• Acute national need: Russia lacked its own modern semiconductor memory production.

• Exploding market: The global MRAM market showed stable growth of 25–30% annually, promising multi-billion-dollar revenues.

• Clear plan: Investments—€71 million in the Russian joint venture and €25.6 million in partner shares. Deadlines: first launch by 2013, full production capacity by 2016. Expected return (IRR) — 36.5% per year.

This technologically flawless, strategically necessary, and commercially promising project was presented for approval:

• Scientific and Technical Council (STC): An independent expert body composed of scientists not employed by RUSNANO gave unanimous positive feedback. Technologically and scientifically, the project was not just feasible but advanced.

• RUSNANO management board: On April 5, 2011, the project was approved unanimously. Risks (currency, technological) were known but outweighed by national importance and market potential.

• Supervisory board of the corporation: The highest governing body, including ministers and deputy ministers from the Russian government (economy, finance, industry), also gave the green light, sanctioning it as a state priority.

"Crocus" was not Chubais’ personal venture but a conscious, collective decision by the entire state innovation system, based on impeccable expertise, strategic necessity, and precise market calculations. Its failure is a failure of execution, not of the idea.

The initial deadlines were overly optimistic, and Chubais deliberately set them so. Missing the deadlines pushed the project into chronic failure. Yet Chubais, as its chief missionary, carried it, trying to revive it. It was a struggle against circumstances—the lack of an ecosystem, demand for innovation, sanctions, and distrust from Western partners—for a solution sanctioned by the state. Meanwhile, the global MRAM market continued to grow at the desired 30% annually, as predicted, highlighting the tragedy of the missed opportunity.

Turning point 2012: The Audit Chamber’s review drew a bold line under the "era of investment romance." Ordinary business risks became punishable as crimes. Yakov Urinson and Andrey Malyshev left; Leonid Gozman was dismissed. Chubais himself changed—hardened, losing his combative qualities, no longer resembling the young reformer. New, less capable but slightly more convenient managers arrived at RUSNANO. Here emerged the chief engineer of chaos—Andrey Trapeznikov, an old associate of Chubais, an information director, and provocateur. In 2015, Trapeznikov opened "Pandora’s Box," beginning to leak materials about Chubais’ competitors for access to the top. This launched criminal cases over Alemar Bank, contracts with Karana, Troika Dialog, and others. Malyshev and Urinson were removed from the corporation’s perimeter, and Yuri Udaltsev came under attack. The lamp-shade story of Leonid Gozman was also spun with the crafty press secretary’s help. Chubais was presented with all of this as a conscious sacrifice by minor figures for the project’s survival and his own reputation. Each new case accelerated a momentum that ultimately slipped out of his control.

By 2015, Trapeznikov controlled not only public and press relations but also relationships with authorities, giving him a monopoly on shaping the narrative. He created images of "heroes" and "enemies," directly influencing resource and reputation allocation. From 2015, Trapeznikov shaped the agenda for the top leader, feeding beneficial information and hiding context. Chubais’ nod ("without understanding") became a license to launch any intrigue. Trapeznikov was not a symptom of system decay but its instigator. He exploited inefficiency, creating managerial chaos in which only his schemes allowed problems to be solved. He opened "Pandora’s Box" to eliminate competitors, but it ultimately consumed the entire corporation.

Another pale (and thus striking) figure—Andrey Svinarenko—held a unique position. He is the only member of the 2011 board whom the new RUSNANO team formally has no claims against. His name does not appear in the lawsuit, though he also voted for the project. Why? He was not an ideologist or intriguer, merely a technocrat-executor, perfectly embodying the main principle of bureaucratic survival: betray at the right time. His "clean record" is not justification but proof that the system seeks convenient scapegoats, not the guilty.

The most telling consequence of this era is human behavior. One and a half thousand RUSNANO employees from Chubais’ era, his corporate "pack," remain silent today. No one publicly defends the man they followed for over a decade. This is not betrayal—it is a collective inoculation with fear administered to all managers in the country. Lesson learned: when the system begins to devour its creators, the right strategy is to become invisible. Chubais’ own flight abroad triggered repression against his team. He was safe but unwilling to save anyone else.

The 2020 change of leadership marked a paradigm shift: from a mission of creation to a ritual of accusation. The new head, Sergey Kulikov, lacked both the will and competence to save complex projects. "Crocus" was simply starved. The project that had been sustained was allowed to die. This was not a managerial decision but administrative neglect.

During Kulikov’s tenure, RUSNANO did not launch a single project comparable to "Crocus"—in fact, it did not launch any new projects at all. The skill of fighting legacy became the only talent. The corporation turned into an office liquidating its own past. Unable to create anything new, Kulikov’s team staged its peak moment: a lawsuit for 12 billion rubles. This is a brilliant simulation of activity: if you cannot build the future, organize a loud trial over the past. But only the executors are defendants. Where are the STC members who gave scientific sanction? Where are the ministers of the 2011 supervisory board who approved investments? Where is Kulikov, whose inaction is simply criminal?

They are absent. The system is judging not itself but its former hired managers who executed its own decisions. The cost of "Crocus" failure exceeds 12 billion rubles—composed of two sums:

• First: 12 billion rubles—the amount of the lawsuit the state files against its own former agents for executing a decision it itself approved.

• Second: silence—the silence of 1,500 former employees, fearing for themselves, and the voluntary silence of public space, where even figures like Alexey Venediktov, acknowledging "state involvement," refuse to analyze and instead echo the presidential administration’s narrative of "just punishment for the corrupt Chubais team."

The state machinery pays these 12 billion not just for a ritual sacrifice but for the universal, deafening agreement that no one should or can question the nature of this failure. Meanwhile, the global MRAM market, as 15 years ago, continues to grow. Only Russia, from a potential player, has become a bystander in an expensive court case over its own past. This is the ultimate, full cost of systemic collapse.