Nearly 7.5 billion roubles (US$ 126 million) have been embezzled from the project to build a landmark new space base for Russia, according to the country’s prosecutor general Yury Chaika.

Chaika’s comments, reported by Russian news agency Rosbalt and byGazeta.ru, refer to the Vostochny Cosmodrome – a multi-billion dollar development in the far-eastern region of Amur, due for completion later this year. Putin has recently claimed he will renew Russia’s image as a “powerful space force”, calling the cosmodrome “one of modern Russia’s biggest and most ambitious projects”.

The disclosure of such large-scale embezzlement is therefore likely to come as an embarrassment. It comes after the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Russia’s security service, the FSB, opened an investigation in Aprilinto allegations that the much smaller sum of 300 million roubles (US$ 5 million) had been siphoned off bycontractor fraud at the project.

Investigators are now probing 250 organizations associated with the cosmodrome construction, according to further comments made by Chaika. He also noted that some 50 million rouble (US$ 840,000) in arrears were owed to construction workers on the project.

The new space center is intended to reduce Russia’s dependency on the Baikonur facility in Kazakhstan, which costs Russia about US$ 115 million per year to use.

Baikonur Cosmodrome was built in the Soviet era and launched astronaut Yuri Gagarin on a journey to orbit the earth in 1961 – the first manned space flight in human history.

occrp.org