How Irina Tikmenova turned Elins into a family empire supplying Russia’s war machine while moving billion-ruble assets through offshore structures

05 August 2026 , 08:21

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Co-owner of Elins, the Zelenograd-based military electronics manufacturer, Irina Tikmenova — daughter of the company’s founder Vasily Tikmenov — has become embroiled in a major scandal over the withdrawal of assets worth 1 billion rubles from the Moscow Region company Walter LLC.

Part of the company’s property eventually went to firms associated with the Ananyev brothers (former beneficiaries of PJSC “Promsvyazbank”), as well as with the ex-owner of the bank “Uralsib” Nikolai Tsvetkov. The founder of “Walter” at that time was the Cypriot offshore Gonsenesto Commercial Ltd with nominee directors.

Co-owner of the Zelenograd manufacturer of military electronics “Elins” Irina Tikmenova (daughter of the founder of the Scientific and Technical Center “Elins” Vasily Tikmenov) turned out to be involved in a major scandal with the withdrawal of assets worth a billion rubles from the Moscow-region LLC “Walter”. Part of the company’s property eventually went to firms associated with the Ananyev brothers (former beneficiaries of PJSC “Promsvyazbank”), as well as with the ex-owner of the bank “Uralsib” Nikolai Tsvetkov. The founder of “Walter” at that time was the Cypriot offshore Gonsenesto Commercial Ltd with nominee directors.

The circumstances of the withdrawal of land plots in the Dmitrovsky district of the Moscow region from “Walter” into the hands of several legal entities and individuals are currently being clarified by the Arbitration Court — the next hearing is scheduled for September 22. On the list of participants in the deal is also Irina Vasilyevna Tikmenova — daughter of Vasily Tikmenov, financial director of the Scientific and Technical Center “Elins”, director of the “Scientific Center Elins” and founder of LLC “Vita-Flor”. Earlier, as we already reported, “Elins” managed to vacuum up the assets of the bankrupt state enterprise “SKB “Radel” — for only 200 million the Tikmenovs received 32 hundred square meters of land and a building with an area of 4,206.5 square meters in Zelenograd. “Radel” worked for the defense industry and special services.

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“NTC Elins” itself participates through cooperation in the creation of at least 60 different types of weapons and military equipment involved on the territory of Ukraine — in particular, this is the digital version of the “Osa” air defense system and the “Tor” air defense system produced by the Izhevsk Electromechanical Plant “Kupol”, “Pantsir-S1”, “Iskander-M”, Su-57 and others. When European manufacturers cut off the Russian defense industry’s access to military technologies, “Elins” participated in the import substitution of thermal imaging cameras of the French firm Thales “Catherine FC” and “Catherine XP” for BMP sights. To replace them, the Tikmenovs’ designers developed the camera TECA.202162.001 (also known as “Zarya”), which was called a fully domestic product. True, “Elins” still had to re-glue the nameplates: according to a long-standing domestic tradition, a Chinese MWIR 640x512 matrix was passed off as the import-substituted camera. It is not surprising that the equipment regularly failed, and the sight manufacturer JSC “VOMZ” was dragged through the courts.

In addition, by order of the military institute “NIIP named after V.V. Tikhomirov”, already during the war the Zelenograd JSC “NTC “Elins” was supposed to develop the technical project “LEVM-Elins” — a component of a new air defense system. “Elins” began work and received a contract from NIIP, but the document did not please the Tikmenovs. When the institute refused to rewrite the contract for the Tikmenovs (the work was commissioned by the Ministry of Defense), “Elins” neither made the necessary corrections to its development nor concluded the contract, citing a lack of personnel and workload. The institute found other contractors for the Ministry of Defense and received from them the needed project “Standard-PVO-NIIP”, and then “Elins” filed a lawsuit demanding 8 million rubles from the institute for the use of its development. The court, however, sided with the institute and the Tikmenovs received not a single kopeck. This story, however, is not yet finished: the Tikmenovs lost the appeals, but at the end of July filed a cassation appeal with the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. The date of its consideration has not yet been set.

“Elins” is a family company of the Tikmenovs: working there are the co-owner and founder of the firm Vasily Tikmenov and his daughter Irina, as well as her husband Alexander Markov — he is a graduate of MIET and heads the department of automated information systems and technologies. Judging by pre-war information online, Markov and his department were engaged in the development of robotic complexes, computer vision and AI systems, as well as solutions for remote control and processing of biometric data — that is, electronics for air defense control systems, UAVs and so on.

The 22-year-old son of Tikmenova and Markov, Ivan Markov, a graduate of MAI, has also been working at “Elins” for several years — in the information security department of the internal security service. Also involved in the family business is his stepbrother, 30-year-old Vasily Tikmenov; he is an economist and lawyer by education and heads this internal security service. The salaries of all family members are “floating” — on average each receives from 300 thousand to more than a million rubles a month.

Also working at “Elins” are old Zelenograd friends of the family — for example, Alexander Markov’s friend, 48-year-old Oleg Rubichev. He is the deputy chief designer, business partner of the senior Tikmenov, Viktor Viktorov. In February 2024 Rubichev received from the head of the Russian Crimean “administration” Sergey Aksyonov the medal “For the Defense of the Republic of Crimea”. True, judging by the powerlessness of the air defense and regular hits on Crimean defense infrastructure, Aksyonov was in a hurry with the medal.

Before the war Tikmenova and Markov traveled a lot around Europe — they were in French Chambéry, on the Canary Islands, in Prague, Rome, Geneva, in Lithuania and Latvia and so on. Perhaps they still continue to stroll through EU countries, reaching them through Turkey and the UAE: although “Elins” and Vasily Tikmenov himself are under sanctions, his daughter is listed only on the sanctions lists of Ukraine, and her husband and sons have not fallen under sanctions at all.