Russian Deputy Defense Minister detained after complaint from Navalny’s team

The 48-year-old politician, arrested on Tuesday for receiving “large-scale bribes”, is a longtime ally of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, now starring in the largest corruption case in the country in recent years.

The complaint, which resulted in the rare arrest of a senior Defense official in the midst of the war in Ukraine, was made in 2022 by the team of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Ivanov appeared in court today in military uniform, remaining inside the glass cubicle reserved for detainees. An alleged accomplice, Sergei Borodin, was also remanded in custody.

The deputy minister was responsible for coordinating works at the Ministry of Defense and for the reconstruction of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, occupied by Moscow, being accused of having participated in a corruption scheme within the scope of “carrying out contractual and subcontracting work” by the institution . A crime that can result in a sentence of up to 15 years in prison.

In December 2022, the Anti-Corruption Foundation, created by Navalny, who died in February in a Siberian jail, revealed that it had access to thousands of emails from the politician’s wife, Svetlana Maniovich, which showed a luxurious lifestyle impossible to maintain with the your official salary.

Svetlana reportedly spent thousands of euros on high-end cars, jewelry, clothes, parties and renting properties and yachts in the south of France. Some of the transactions, the investigative group alleges, were facilitated by Ministry of Defense service providers.

The Kremlin stated, according to information from AFP, that Russian President Vladimir Putin is in “constant” contact with Shoigu, refusing to comment on Ivanov’s detention. “There will be an investigation”, stressed Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov, denying “speculation”.

Timur Ivanov will be detained in preventive detention in Lefortovo prison, in Moscow, at least until June 23. American journalist Evan Gershkovich, accused of espionage, is in the same jail.