Russian deputy defense minister arrested for corruption

Russian security services have arrested Timur Ivanov, one of the country’s deputy defense ministers. He is suspected of having accepted large bribes.

Ivanov was arrested on Tuesday, according to a brief statement from the Russian authorities.

He is accused of having accepted bribes “on a particularly large scale” and risks up to 15 years in prison.

Ivanov works under Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who has the job of leading the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Kremlin states that both Shoigu and President Vladimir Putin have been informed of the arrest.

It is the most high-profile corruption case in Russia’s defense leadership since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022.

Long Sjojgu collaboration

The 48-year-old has been deputy defense minister since 2016, and he was responsible for property management, accommodation and health services in the ministry.

Since 2013, he has led a construction company affiliated with the Ministry of Defense that builds housing for soldiers and high-security facilities, and from 2012 to 2016 he was deputy governor of the Moscow region while Shoigu was governor.

The ministry has not commented on the matter.

The sudden arrest has led to speculation about internal strife among the Russian elite. The newspaper Kommersant writes that Ivanov was arrested by the federal security service FSB, which in March was ordered to crack down on corruption in the state’s procurement of defense material.

According to the newspaper Izvestija, Ivanov’s homes have been searched, and several have been arrested. The case has been given a lot of time on state television.

– Let’s just say that the investigation did not start yesterday, the day before yesterday, or a month ago, says an unnamed source in the Russian judiciary to the state news agency Tass.

Accusations of corruption

Russian military bloggers have long accused the country’s defense leadership of corruption and incompetence, particularly after the military’s retreat from parts of Ukraine in the first Ukrainian counter-offensive.

Within the Russian elite there are divided views on the war, which has led to relations with the West being at their worst since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

Ivanov has long been associated with the wealth that has characterized certain sections of the Russian elite after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Alexei Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation FBK claimed in 2022 that Ivanov and his family lived a life of luxury. Forbes has described Ivanov as one of the richest people in the Russian security and defense apparatus.

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