Moscow, February 13 - RAPSI. Former minister of agriculture Yelena Skrynnik is currently being questioned in a large-scale embezzlement case within the Rosagroleasing company, which leases agricultural machinery, the Interior Ministry told RIA Novosti on Wednesday.

Prior to her ministerial role, Skrynnik served as the general director of Rosagroleasing company.

From 2007 to 2009, Rosagroleasing entered into contracts with companies founded by Oleg Donskikh, the former chief of the company's branch in the Central Federal District and the head of the Lipetsk regional administration's agricultural department.

Donskikh helped allocate the funds to Rosagroleasing and then embezzled them, the ministry stated in a press release.

The total damages to the state exceeded 600 million rubles ($ 20 million).

Donskikh, who has been accused of fraud, has fled the country.

He has been placed on the federal wanted list.

According to the investigators, Lipetsk businessmen Sergei Burdovsky and Igor Konyakhin were also involved in embezzling the funds. They have also been accused of fraud.

In November 2011, the Rossiya 1 television channel screened the documentary film, "People in Power: Theft Taken to the Extreme."

The film claims that Skrynnik, who headed Rosagroleasing from 2001 to 2009, may have been involved in embezzling the public funds allocated to the state company.

Skrynnik denied these allegations.