Ariant Employees Released After Detention

Employees of the Ariant company, who were detained the previous day at a subsidiary on Kopeysk Highway in Chelyabinsk, have been released home. This was reported by relatives of the detainees.

According to them, law enforcement officers took about 10 people from the enterprise, including management and rank-and-file workers. The incident occurred around 7:00 a.m., and people were released closer to 19:00.

«More than 12 hours without being offered a drink, food, or phones,» stated the detainees« relatives.

During the operation, Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) employees were checking information about possible fraud with bonus payments to Ariant employees.

The Chelyabinsk Region Main Directorate of the MVD confirmed that operational activities are ongoing.

The subsidiary at 48 Kopeysk Highway is the Perant plant, part of the Ariant company. The enterprise was registered in 1996, and in 2012 it became part of the Ural-Siberian Metallurgical Company (USMK), which produced meat products using raw materials from the Krasnogorsk pig complex. USMK was the main structure of the empire of Chelyabinsk businessmen Yuri Antipov and Alexander Aristov.

Recall that in December 2025, employees of the regional Federal Security Service (FSB) directorate caught red-handed while receiving a bribe the 43-year-old head of the procurement department of the Ariant agrofirm, Maxim Berger, who was then sent to a pre-trial detention center (SIZO).

Earlier, in April 2024, the Chelyabinsk Region Arbitration Court decided to nationalize the enterprises of the Ariant group following a lawsuit by the Prosecutor General«s Office.