Marina Rakova Case

The Marina Rakova Case is a criminal case of fraud on a large scale opened in 2021 against the ex-deputy Minister of Education Marina Rakova. 7 people were held accountable, including the Rector of the Moscow School for the Social and Economic Sciences Sergey Zuev and RANEPA rector Vladimir Mau. All the accused denied any wrongdoing and were kept in detention centers, except Kristina Kruchkova, ex-Executive Director of MSSES, who gave a confession and was put under house arrest. Meanwhile, Sergey Zuev was detained soon after heart surgery; he was several times denied transfer under house arrest despite his grave health condition.

Marina Rakova made a confession statement after 9 months in a detention center, she and Zuev offered to compensate for the alleged damage. However, journalistic investigations tend to think that the case is actually forced by a struggle for the redistribution of a billion roubles market of school books, as well as the result of personal conflicts between Rakova and her former chief Olga Vasilieva and directors of the Prosvescheniye Publishing House [ru], the monopolist of state-funded Russian schoolbooks market.

The sentence was announced in March 2024. Rakova got 5 years in a general regime colony, while all other defendants received suspended prison sentences.