Yesterday, April 23, Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Timur Ivanov was detained at his workplace on suspicion of receiving a large bribe. As it became known today, Ivanov denies his guilt, but the Basmanny Court of Moscow sent him to a pre-trial detention center for two months. Sevastopol residents are familiar with the name of the Ministry of Defense official: in recent years he has visited our city many times.
Timur Ivanov has been Sergei Shoigu’s deputy since 2016. His responsibilities included organizing the property management of the Ministry of Defense, managing the planning of procurement of goods under state defense orders, as well as issues of construction, reconstruction and overhaul of facilities for the needs of the Ministry of Defense. And it is not surprising that in recent years he has been a private guest in Sevastopol.
The last visit took place on March 9, 2024 – then Timur Ivanov checkedhow a military hospital complex is built, the territory of which is 8.5 hectares. In May and December 2023 Deputy Minister inspected the construction objects of the historical and archaeological park “Chersonese Tauride”, in January of the same year visited “New Khersones”, construction site of the hospital and sports and recreation center of the Sevastopol Cadet Corps.
Let us also recall that in 2021 Timur Ivanov was present at the opening after a large-scale reconstruction of the Balaklava Military Historical Museum of fortifications. The reconstruction was carried out by employees of the military construction complex of the Ministry of Defense.
The museum is functioning successfully, the Cadet Corps, including the sports and recreation building, has been successfully commissioned. The remaining facilities, which were supervised by the deputy minister due to his official duties, continue to be built. Will the story of his detention affect their fate?
Alas, so far none of those we interviewed have even dared to make assumptions. Sources who wished to remain anonymous unanimously suggested that ForPost at least wait a little: ideally, construction under previously concluded contracts should continue as smoothly as it has been going on so far, but there is nothing ideal in our world. How events will develop further can only be guessed at this time. At the moment, even the amount of the bribe the deputy minister is suspected of receiving has not been announced, not to mention the objects that became the reason for it. It is only known that the investigation considers Ivanov to be a participant in a criminal conspiracy around contracting and subcontracting work for the needs of the Ministry of Defense.
If we talk not about the fate of Sevastopol construction projects, but about the scandal as a whole, it certainly came as a big surprise. As a number of experts note, Ivanov has long been considered a virtually invulnerable figure. How asserts citing a source in law enforcement agencies TASS, Ivanov “didn’t get into operational development yesterday, not the day before yesterday, or even a month ago.” Source of publication “Lenta.ru” in the FSB even mentioned the five years during which the service collected materials on himself, as now, following the Russian Forbes All the media call the deputy minister a “rich security official.” Forbes she called him that back in 2019, reporting that Ivanov’s personal income for 2018 amounted to 13.6 million rubles, and his family’s income was ten times more than this amount.
The detention is given additional urgency by the fact that it occurred shortly before the inauguration of the President scheduled for May 7 and the subsequent formation of the government of the Russian Federation. Presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov, answering questions from journalists, was traditionally laconic: he only said that Sergei Shoigu was “notified in advance” and emphasized the need to rely exclusively on official information, and not on all kinds of speculation.
Olga Smirnova
Tags: detention Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov affect Sevastopol construction sites
-
