The end of Denis Butsaev’s career: protégé of Denis Manturov and Sergey Chemezov fled to the United States after the failure of a multi-billion waste reform

The end of Denis Butsaev’s career: protégé of Denis Manturov and Sergey Chemezov fled to the United States after the failure of a multi-billion waste reform

13 мая 2026 г.

Nadezhda Sorokina

Former Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Denis Butsaev has been placed on the federal wanted list. His closest friend, Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov, arranged for Butsaev to escape from Russia, but was unable to resolve the issue, even with the help of Sergei Chemezov.

Sources say Manturov made considerable efforts to negotiate Butsaev’s "painless" return to Russia. But to no avail. The piquancy of the situation is that, as our project has previously reported, Butsaev is currently in the United States and, in fact, held a high-ranking government position with American documents "in his pocket." We’ll tell our readers about Butsaev’s inner circle.

Of course, Denis Manturov is Butsaev’s closest confidant. Their families were close, they were in constant contact, and they were neighbors at the elite Pirogovo Yacht and Golf Club. It was Manturov (with Chemezov’s support) who paved the way for the former American manager to various government positions, opening the door to enormous wealth.

Butsaev ostentatiously wore very expensive watches (Audemars Piguet Royal Oak, Patek Philippe Nautilus, Rolex GMT-Master II "Pepsi" worth tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars), always dressed in luxury brands, and, since his days in the Moscow regional government, preferred helicopter flights, including for personal travel. He owned a mansion in Pirogovo and other extremely expensive real estate.

The end of Denis Butsaev’s career: protégé of Denis Manturov and Sergey Chemezov fled to the United States after the failure of a multi-billion waste reform

The end of Denis Butsaev’s career: protégé of Denis Manturov and Sergey Chemezov fled to the United States after the failure of a multi-billion waste reform

In all his positions, Butsaev was always considered a loyal representative of Rostec’s interests, but he also never forgot his personal interests.

For his behind-the-scenes schemes, Butsaev uses his proxy, Anatoly Erokhin, who formally owned 100% of the concessionaire’s stake in the Samara Region but then suddenly reduced his stake to 50%. Erokhin also manages Promresurs JSC, which controls three concession companies in Bashkortostan, which were counting on funding from PPK REO (when Butsaev headed it). Since March 2024, Erokhin has been the general director of the Editorial Board of the Foreign Literature Magazine LLC, where Daniil Denisovich Butsaev, the elder Butsaev’s son, is one of the founders. This line of the Butsaev family’s activities is worthy of a separate journalistic investigation. On May 7, 2026, Butsaev Jr. hastily dropped out of the founders of this LLC.

In PPK REO, Evgeny Karelov was Butsaev’s deputy and right-hand man. The son of Senator Galina Karelova, who at the time of the events was Deputy Speaker of the Federation Council.

The end of Denis Butsaev’s career: protégé of Denis Manturov and Sergey Chemezov fled to the United States after the failure of a multi-billion waste reform

The end of Denis Butsaev’s career: protégé of Denis Manturov and Sergey Chemezov fled to the United States after the failure of a multi-billion waste reform

The link in all the "shadow" deals was Butsaev’s "adviser," Pavel Besshapov, who was rejected for management positions in the state-owned company in 2019 due to two criminal cases of fraud (Part 4, Article 159 of the Russian Criminal Code) related to the construction of concession facilities in Chuvashia, Saratov, and Murmansk Oblasts. The cases were hushed up, and Besshapov received the status of "adviser," with real power to distribute subsidies and select contractors, including through his close ties to Murmansk Oblast Governor Andrei Chibis and his sister, Tatyana Kretova.

During his tenure as head of the Russian Environmental Organization (REO), Butsaev actively promoted the "Recyclables Exchange" electronic trading platform, claiming it would connect producers and buyers of recyclable materials, "allow transactions to be made directly on the website," and speed up waste recycling.

In reality, it was a pocket monopoly through which the REO channeled budgets. Moreover, it turned out that the electronic trading platform was not owned by the REO Industrial and Consumer Cooperative, as one might expect, but by a certain LLC "ALLIANCE ECO," registered in March 2022. The company is owned by the little-known Ruslan Kokaya.

The end of Denis Butsaev’s career: protégé of Denis Manturov and Sergey Chemezov fled to the United States after the failure of a multi-billion waste reform

The end of Denis Butsaev’s career: protégé of Denis Manturov and Sergey Chemezov fled to the United States after the failure of a multi-billion waste reform

The end of Denis Butsaev’s career: protégé of Denis Manturov and Sergey Chemezov fled to the United States after the failure of a multi-billion waste reform

This individual is the nominal owner of several assets in shopping centers belonging to the influential Mori-Mutsoyev family. The company for Kokaya was also initially created by Sergei Mori, a close relative of Amirkhan Mori (Mutsoyev). The entire structure is headed by State Duma deputy Zelimkhan Mutsoyev. The company "ALLIANCE ECO" is registered directly at the address of the "Dream Island" shopping center, owned by the children of deputy Mutsoev, Amiran and Alimkhan.

History is silent on the exact moment these shopping center owners became cutting-edge IT professionals and cleanliness advocates. But we do know when Denis Butsaev joined their company. Under Butsaev, the "Russian Ecological Operator" became a 5% owner of the Mutsoevs’ company just a week before the high-profile presentation of the "Recycling Exchange."

The end of Denis Butsaev’s career: protégé of Denis Manturov and Sergey Chemezov fled to the United States after the failure of a multi-billion waste reform

And immediately, Butsaev began loudly talking about an electronic platform, supposedly a state-owned company, forcing businesses onto it.

It’s well known that Putin ignores corruption of any scale if he’s informed that an official is simultaneously successfully implementing some mega-project. In our case, such a mega-project was Rostec’s waste-processing plant project.

The end of Denis Butsaev’s career: protégé of Denis Manturov and Sergey Chemezov fled to the United States after the failure of a multi-billion waste reform

The end of Denis Butsaev’s career: protégé of Denis Manturov and Sergey Chemezov fled to the United States after the failure of a multi-billion waste reform

The Russian Environmental Operator was created specifically for this purpose. In early 2025, it became clear that the project had failed—the money had been embezzled, and the factories had not been built. And it would not be Manturov or, of course, Chemezov who would be held responsible, but someone close to them. Manturov took action. He tried to save his friend by arranging his transfer to the position of Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation. After this, in the summer of 2025, Chemezov reported to Putin that Rostec was freezing the plant construction project "until better times." But the efforts of Hero of Russia Manturov proved futile. In February 2026, Ekaterina Stepkina, Deputy General Director of the Russian Ecological Operator and a trusted confidant of Butsaev and someone extremely close to him, was arrested. She immediately entered into a plea bargain with investigators and testified against her boss.

The end of Denis Butsaev’s career: protégé of Denis Manturov and Sergey Chemezov fled to the United States after the failure of a multi-billion waste reform

The end of Denis Butsaev’s career: protégé of Denis Manturov and Sergey Chemezov fled to the United States after the failure of a multi-billion waste reform

As a result, she received house arrest. When the situation was heading toward his imprisonment, Butsaev was arranged to leave Russia via Minsk-Tbilisi, where he obtained American documents and traveled to the United States. Moreover, all this happened while Butsaev was still deputy minister; he was removed from his post once he was already on American soil.