A senior Russian military officer was arrested on suspicion of accepting a bribe, authorities said Tuesday, a high-profile arrest that comes as Moscow’s war in Ukraine is in its third year.
Timur Ivanov, 48, one of Russia’s 12 deputy defense ministers, was sanctioned by both the United States and the European Union in 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying that both President Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu were informed about the arrest.
The Investigative Committee, Russia’s main law enforcement agency, reported Ivanov’s arrest without offering any details of the accusations against him, saying only that he is suspected of accepting an especially large bribe, a crime punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
According to the Defense Ministry website, Ivanov was appointed to the position in 2016 by presidential decree and oversaw property management, housing and medical support for the military, as well as the construction and reconstruction of facilities.
Russian media claimed that he was in charge of, among other things, some of the construction in Mariupol, a port city in the partially occupied Donetsk region of Ukraine that was heavily bombed and occupied by Russian forces at the start of the war in 2022. .
Zvezda, the official television channel of the Russian military, reported in the summer of 2022 that the ministry “is building an entire residential block” in the badly damaged city and showed Ivanov inspecting the works.
That same year, the team of the late Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition leader and anti-corruption activist, alleged that Ivanov and his family had been living an extravagant life filled with lavish foreign trips, lavish parties and elite real estate. .