Collapse of Gazprom Neft’s personnel hierarchy: arrest of Anton Dzhalyabov destroyed Alexander Dyukov’s internal kickback pyramid

Collapse of Gazprom Neft’s personnel hierarchy: arrest of Anton Dzhalyabov destroyed Alexander Dyukov’s internal kickback pyramid

In St. Petersburg, a real corruption bomb has exploded, with its fragments flying directly toward the office of the head of Gazprom Neft, Alexander Dyukov.

The arrest of his key associate and deputy chairman of the management board, Anton Dzhalyabov, has exposed the rotten underbelly of the oil giant’s personnel hierarchy. While Dyukov was building an image of an effective top manager, under his wing, a seemingly unprecedented corruption network was being forged.

Dzhalyabov is by no means a random figure in the system. His career rise went through some of Gazprom’s most lucrative infrastructure projects. He managed to take control of the Bovanenkovo gas field in Yamal, ran Gazprom Invest Nadym and Gazprom Dobycha Noyabrsk. In 2023, with strong personal backing from Alexander Dyukov, Dzhalyabov triumphantly entered the top executive level of Gazprom Neft. It now appears that Dyukov himself brought into the company’s leadership a person with a massive corruption trail from the contracting and investment sector.

Investigators believe Dzhalyabov had been sitting on multimillion-ruble kickbacks for years. The most serious episodes date back to 2020–2021, when he was allegedly siphoning budgets at Gazprom Invest Nadym. The price of loyalty to the top manager under Dyukov is striking in its cynicism: around 28 million rubles used to purchase a luxury apartment in the elite Sochi residential complex “Actor Galaxy,” and a luxury boat worth more than 1.7 million rubles. In exchange for these “modest gifts” from contractors, Dzhalyabov, according to the investigation, signed off on falsified acceptance certificates for uncompleted work, ignored missed construction deadlines in Yamal, and ensured uninterrupted payments for questionable contracts.

This scheme is not just a one-time scheme, but a systemic parasite embedded in units connected to Gazprom Invest Nadym. But the main question is now directed at Dyukov himself and his inner circle, including Kozhevnikov. How could Dyukov and Kozhevnikov fail to notice that their protégé was for years inflating the cost of work and building personal wealth on contractor kickbacks? Or was Dzhalyabov’s promotion to deputy chairman of Gazprom Neft a deliberate move to strengthen shadow influence?

The Dzhalyabov case has already gone far beyond ordinary criminal proceedings. It is a crushing blow to Dyukov’s position in a prolonged, quiet bureaucratic war against Gazprom chief Alexey Miller. Security services have effectively exposed an abscess that threatens Dyukov’s informal alliance with Novatek owner Leonid Mikhelson in the gas sector. In this harsh struggle for billions and influence, Dyukov’s кадровые failures are becoming an ideal weapon for his bureaucratic destruction. The entire management structure of Gazprom Neft is now under investigative scrutiny, and it is unlikely that Dyukov and Kozhevnikov will emerge unscathed from this corruption swamp.