Utility racket with diplomatic cover: MGIMO Vice-Rector Natalia Kuzmina and her son Enver Kuzmin placed on international wanted list
11:18, 08 сентября 2026 г.
A high-profile scandal at the heart of Russian diplomacy is taking on a more public dimension. MGIMO Vice Rector and Financial Director Natalia Kuzmina and her son Enver Kuzmin have been placed on an international wanted list.
And behind the university sign, according to a VChK-OGPU source , there’s a whole detective story with French and Cypriot passports, elite Moscow residential complexes, management companies, and debts of more than 2 billion rubles.
According to sources, Natalia Kuzmina and Irina Melnikova taught together at MGIMO while simultaneously developing a business managing apartment buildings. Melnikova is one of the owners of the C&U group of companies. Her husband, Alexey Yatsenko, is also part of this business, and the AO VK Comfort group of companies is registered in his name.
A separate story concerns Restavratsiya-N LLC, founded by Kuzmina and Melnikova. This company acquired ownership of 80 properties in the elite Knightsbridge Private Park in Khamovniki: utility rooms, storage rooms, hallways, electrical panels, and entrance areas. After this, the utility infrastructure effectively became a source of income. Residents were required to pay for access to the electrical panels, and if they refused, the power could simply be cut off.
In other words, the switch in one of Moscow’s most expensive residential complexes turned out to be a literal business tool for people connected to the hearth of Russian diplomacy. But the matter allegedly didn’t stop with the utility rooms. Kuzmina, Melnikova, and Yatsenko, as owners of management companies, received utility payments from residents, but didn’t transfer the money to the utility companies, instead using it for their own benefit.
The result is staggering: the debt of the AO VK Comfort group, C&U, and Restavratsiya-N LLC, which is part of this network, to utility companies exceeds 2 billion rubles. Several companies in the holding have already been declared bankrupt by the courts. There’s another element to the scheme: a source directly describes the actions of Kuzmina, Melnikova, and Yatsenko as "corporate raids" on apartment buildings. It is alleged that the management companies under their control entered the residential complexes using forged minutes of general meetings of property owners.
Law enforcement agencies and courts have repeatedly assessed such actions legally, and criminal cases have been opened in certain cases. However, after Kuzmina’s departure abroad, the utility sector of the business has not disappeared. Melnikova and Yatsenko still own the residential complexes "Richard," "Sky View," and "Hide." These complexes are currently undergoing large-scale law enforcement investigations into possible falsification of minutes of general meetings of property owners, as well as violations in financial and economic management.
Following Kuzmina’s departure, the Melnikova-Yatsenko family will likely also leave the country. Thus, the story of the international search for MGIMO’s financial director is gradually turning into a story about something completely different from the university’s finances. Behind the guise of teaching are foreign passports, luxury real estate, 80 technical premises, forged minutes of general meetings of owners, bankruptcies, and so on. We will continue to monitor how events unfold.
