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Russian Investigative Committee brings charges against stage director Serebrennikov

The director pleaded not guilty during the interrogation

Kirill Serebrennikov Stanislav Krasilnikov/TASS

Kirill Serebrennikov

© Stanislav Krasilnikov/TASS

MOSCOW, August 22. /TASS/. Prosecutors have brought charges against Artistic Director of the Moscow-based Gogol Center theater Kirill Serebrennikov for large-scale embezzlement, Spokeswoman for the Russian Investigative Committee Svetlana Petrenko told TASS.

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Stage director Kirill Serebrennikov detained on suspicion of masterminding fraud

"Serebrennikov is accused of embezzling no less than 68 mln rubles [$1.1mln] allocated in 2011-2014 to implement the Platform project," she said.

Petrenko confirmed that "he pleaded not guilty during the interrogation."

She earlier stated that the Russian Investigative Committee’s Special Investigations Department had detained Artistic Director of the Moscow-based Gogol Center theater Kirill Serebrennikov on suspicion of masterminding an embezzlement scheme of no less than 68 million rubles earmarked for the Platform project in 2011-2014.

Former Gogol Center’s director and former producer of the Seventh Studio (Sedmaya Studiya) autonomous noncommercial organization Alexey Malobrodsky, as well as the organization’s former Director General Yury Itin and senior accountant Nina Maslyaeva were detained under the same criminal case. Nina Maslyaeva pled guilty.

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