A Russian deputy defense minister, Timur Ivanov, was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of taking bribes. The highest Russian investigative committee announced this yesterday, without providing details about the accusations against him.
The press release only stated that he is suspected of taking bribes “on a remarkably large scale.” This is a criminal offense punishable by a maximum of fifteen years in prison.
Protégé of Shoigu
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a report on Ivanov’s arrest was submitted to President Vladimir Putin. Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu was also informed in advance of the arrest. Ivanov was known as a protégé of Shoigu.
Ivanov, 48, is one of twelve deputy ministers of defense in Russia, making him the highest official to get into trouble since the start of the war in Ukraine. He built his career at a number of major Russian companies in the oil and energy sectors and at the Moscow regional government before joining the Ministry of Defense in 2010. In 2016 he became deputy minister there.
Accused by the late Navalny
According to the American weekly Forbes Timur Ivanov is one of the richest men in the Russian security services. Ivanov has long been in charge of a number of major military construction projects at home, including a number of important contracts awarded for the reconstruction of the Russian-occupied eastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, which was destroyed shortly after the start of the war in February 2022 was largely destroyed by Russian bombing.
In that context, his name previously appeared in a corruption investigation by the now deceased opposition leader Alexei Navalny, which stated that as a Russian deputy minister he benefited from the many construction projects in besieged Mariupol.
Video | Russians rebuild Mariupol (March 2023)
Navalny also discovered that Ivanov, who is on both the US and European sanctions lists, deliberately divorced his wife to avoid Western sanctions.
Patriot Park
Ivanov was also responsible for the construction of Patriot Park, a military theme park just outside Moscow that displays all kinds of weaponry and a Russian Orthodox cathedral was built to support the Russian armed forces in their mission. He received the Order of Merit for the Fatherland several times.
The circumstances surrounding Ivanov’s arrest are unclear. According to The New York Times he may have fallen out of favor because his personal interests clashed with the business interests of the FSB, another Russian security service or an oligarch with even more powerful connections.
