A Russian deputy defense minister who was implicated in an inquiry by the team of late opposition leader Alexei Navalny was remanded in detention on Wednesday on suspicion of accepting significant bribes.
The arrest of Timur Ivanov, a longstanding confidant of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, is Russia’s most dramatic corruption case in recent years, and it comes as military spending has skyrocketed amid the country’s onslaught on Ukraine.
Ivanov, 48, was in charge of construction and procurement for the Armed Forces and was tied to Russia’s high-profile restoration of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, which Moscow had occupied.
“The deputy defense minister of the Russian Federation was sent to a pre-trial detention center,” the press service for Moscow courthouses said in a statement on social media.
He faces up to 15 years in prison for bribe-taking “on a particularly large scale,” it added.
Several independent Russian media outlets have alleged that Ivanov and his family acquired vast wealth through kick-backs on contracts he agreed at the ministry.
In December 2022, Navalny’s team said they had obtained thousands of leaked emails from Ivanov’s wife, Svetlana Maniovich, that showed a lavish lifestyle well beyond what his official salary could cover.
They said she had spent hundreds of thousands of euros on luxury cars, jewelry, clothes, parties, and renting premium property and yachts in the south of France.
Some of the transactions were routed through third parties, including Defense Ministry contractors, it alleged.
In court on Wednesday, Ivanov, 48, stood in a glass dock for defendants in military uniform.
The court said investigators believe he was part of a “criminal conspiracy” to take a “bribe on a particularly large scale in the form of property services, during the course of contracting and subcontracting work for the Defense Ministry.”
The judge sent him to pre-trial detention until at least June 23. He will be held at the notorious Lefortovo jail in Moscow.
Campaigners, including Navalny, have long argued that corruption is endemic in President Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Arrests of high-profile government figures are rare, usually the result of political infighting, analysts say.
Activists say the vast sums being poured into the Ukraine offensive have given officials new opportunities to enrich themselves through secretive procurement deals.
Басманный суд Москвы отправил на два месяца в СИЗО замминистра обороны РФ Тимура Иванова
Иванова обвиняют по статье о получение взятки в особо крупном размере. Ему может грозить до 15 лет заключения.
«Следствие полагает, что Иванов вступил в преступный сговор с третьими лицами,… pic.twitter.com/fcJHImrvja
— SOTA (@Sota_Vision) April 24, 2024
translation
The Basmanny Court of Moscow sent Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Timur Ivanov to a pre-trial detention center for two months
Ivanov is accused of receiving a bribe on an especially large scale. He could face up to 15 years in prison.
“The investigation believes that Ivanov entered into a criminal conspiracy with third parties, teamed up with them in advance to commit an organized group crime – receiving on an especially large scale in the form of providing services of a property nature during contracting and subcontracting work for the needs of the Ministry of Defense,” the court said. .
