Forbes has ranked Russian Deputy Minister Timur Ivanov among the richest men in the Russian security forces.
Another man, the third in a row, was taken into custody as part of an investigation into corruption which focuses on the Russian Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov (Timur Ivanov) – a close ally of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who is at risk of being hit by the worst scandal to hit the Ministry of Defense since the start of the war in Ukraine.
The scandal which takes on ever greater dimensions and dominates the political field and the media in view of the government restructuring which President Vladimir Putin is expected to announce next month.
A source told the state-run TASS agency that Shoigu fired Ivanov after his arrest and that investigators seized all bank accounts and assets of Ivanov and his family.
Some analysts see the case as an attempt to weaken Shoigu and a sign of elite tensions and rivalries as Putin prepares to appoint a new government next month after being re-elected in March for another six-year term.
Shoigu, however, is expected to keep his post. Under his direction, Russian forces regrouped and regained the upper hand in Ukraine, with a series of territorial gains over the past two months.
The bribes to Deputy Minister Ivanov
According to the courts service, Alexander Fomin, co-founder of construction company Olimpsitistroy, is suspected of bribing Ivanov, who was taken into custody on Tuesday, and Sergey Borodin, a close associate of Ivanov, who is also being held.
The court service said that Fomin, “having a relationship of trust with Ivanov”, is suspected of “providing services” to Ivanov, Borodin and others. “Also Fomin and other persons, acting as an organized group, contributed to Ivanov receiving a particularly big bribery in the form of the illegal provision to him of services related to real estate“, he said.
The financial newspaper Kommersant wrote that investigators suspect that Ivanov was bribed by Fomin me in return to help him secure for his company contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
In other investigations there was talk of corruption in its Russian reconstruction Mariupolithe Ukrainian city on the Sea of Azov controlled by Russian forces.
Ivanov, who insists he is innocent, was arrested at work on Tuesday by the Federal Security Service, the main successor to the Soviet KGB. He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
Who is Ivanov?
Ivanov, acting deputy minister since 2016, was in charge of real estate management, housing, construction and mortgages at the defense ministry – whose spending has skyrocketed since the start of the war. It has long been the subject of journalistic investigations.
Forbes magazine ranked Ivanov among the richer men in the Russian security forces.
In 2022, the Russian Anti-Corruption Foundation, headed by the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, investigated Ivanov. He claimed that he and his family lived in luxury, with yacht, helicoptersvisits to the French Riviera, shopping of diamonds even of a 19th century mansion in one of the most expensive districts of Moscow.
Source: skai.gr
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