Russia imprisons senior defense official for 13 years over corruption
Reuters
Timur Ivanov, Russia’s former deputy defense minister, was found guilty of corruption and sentenced to 13 years in a penal colony on Tuesday, marking the harshest sentence so far in a series of graft cases involving defense officials.
Ivanov was arrested in April 2024 on suspicion of taking bribes, and investigators added new embezzlement charges in October. More than a dozen people, including two other former deputy ministers, have been arrested in investigations into separate cases, News.Az reports citing Reuters.
The trial was closed on grounds of state secrecy. Anton Filatov, a former logistics company boss on trial with Ivanov, received a 12-1/2 year sentence.
State media reported that the total sum embezzled was 4.1 billion roubles ($48.8 million), mostly in the form of bank transfers to two foreign accounts.
Ivanov, who pleaded not guilty, was stripped of all state awards and the court confiscated 2.5 billion roubles worth of property, cars and cash from him.
Russian media said he and his wife owned a luxury apartment in central Moscow, a three-storey English-style mansion on the outskirts of the capital and an extensive collection of classic cars including a Bentley and an Aston Martin.
Russia's "Z-bloggers", an influential group of war correspondents, have voiced outrage at the scale of corruption reported in the defence establishment while young Russians are dying fighting in Ukraine.
One blogger, Alexander Kots, said 13 years was a long sentence but corrupt defence officials should be put on trial in wartime as "traitors to the Motherland".
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