Putin classmate’s firms secure $1.5 billion Moscow school-meal contracts

Four newly formed firms—Verona Kapital, Kombinat Doshkolnogo Pitaniya (KDP), RSK and ShYuZ—won every one of the 39 contracts to provide meals to Moscow schools from 2026 through 2028, a package worth 126.7 billion rubles ($1.5 billion). The owners, Sergei Yefimchuk, Nikolai Kuznetsov, Dmitry Aliyev and Olga Rusishvili, all previously worked for Grandtitul, where Ilgam Ragimov is the largest shareholder; Ragimov studied law alongside President Vladimir Putin at Leningrad State University.

The firms were incorporated in March 2024, shortly after the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose Wagner-linked catering companies previously held the school-food business. The shift signals a transfer of lucrative state-funded catering from Prigozhin’s network to entities connected to a Putin classmate. The Anti-Corruption Foundation has alleged that Ragimov and two other classmates helped finance a lavish Gelendzhik property, spending 7 billion rubles through their company Investment Solutions. The contracts illustrate the continuing intertwining of political connections and Russian public-sector procurement.