What is known about the detained Deputy Minister of Defense Ivanov, who was responsible for procurement, property, housing and medicine in the army – April 23, 2024

The Investigative Committee on the evening of April 23 announced the detention of one of the key deputy ministers of defense of the Russian Federation, Timur Ivanov. Candidate of Economic Sciences, Honored Builder, Honorary Worker of the Fuel and Energy Complex is suspected of receiving a bribe (article 290 Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) in the amount of at least 1 million rubles. Such a relatively small amount should not be confusing – this is the lower limit for the case to be classified according to parts 6 Article 290, that is, on a particularly large scale. The maximum penalty for this is 15 years. But in theory, the punishment could simply be a fine of 3 million rubles.

Timur Ivanov is one of the most frequently mentioned military leaders in the media. Moreover, his bright – now ex-wife Svetlana Zakharova also appeared on the pages of newspapers and news sites. In high Moscow society she is known as the creator of the Metropol fashion house and almost a style icon, and to the general public as the host of the program “Take It Off Immediately” – also about fashion, but for ordinary people.

Western media have repeatedly noticed her at fashionable resorts, at the epicenter of the social life familiar to wealthy Russians.

Timur Ivanov himself, before his appointment to the Ministry of Defense, being in the status of an adviser to the executive director of the Rosenergoatom concern, was also captured by the paparazzi at Moscow and foreign parties. Later, he served as deputy chairman of the board of Inter RAO UES, first vice-president of Atomstroyexport and general director of the Russian Energy Agency of the Russian Ministry of Energy, and his social life became noticeably more modest. And after he became an official, and even more so after his appointment as Deputy Minister of Defense in 2016, it was completely reduced to a minimum.

Timur Ivanov started at the end 1990s years in nuclear energy (his PhD thesis is about the design of nuclear power plants). In those years, it was customary to explain the rapid success of young specialists by connections, so Ivanov was credited with a relationship with one of the leaders of the relevant ministry. However, by 2012, when he moved from the energy sector to work for the government of the Moscow region, he was already married for the second time to Svetlana Zakharova.

Timur Ivanov’s direct superior in the Moscow region government was Sergei Shoigu, now the Minister of Defense. However, Shoigu was given only six months to rule the region. In November 2012, he was already appointed Minister of Defense instead of Anatoly Serdyukov, who left with a scandal. A few months later, Timur Ivanov was appointed head of JSC Oboronstroy, a “daughter” of the then famous Oboronservis, whose leadership was suspected of large-scale fraud with army property.

In the first year of Ivanov’s leadership of Oboronstroy, which was in charge of most of the ministry’s construction projects as the “mother” company for dozens of military contracting enterprises throughout the country, the company’s revenue tripled (to 270 million rubles), and management expenses almost fivefold – to 250 million . Just two years later, the company’s revenue amounted to 1.5 billion rubles, and management expenses amounted to a billion. However, of course, this was just the tip of the iceberg. The main cash flows of army construction and operational orders came from numerous subsidiaries of Oboronstroy, which, in fact, was involved in their management.

When in 2016 Timur Ivanov was moved along the bureaucratic vertical of the Ministry of Defense to the chair of Deputy Minister, continuing, in essence, to do the same thing – oversee construction projects in the interests of the army and engage in the operation of military housing, a rather unusual thing happened that did not really fit into the defense paradigm relations, but remained clearly in line with the logic of large corporate processes. Oboronstroy issued an additional issue of shares worth 3.8 billion rubles, which were purchased by the Ministry of Defense with budget money. The funds, as it was written, went to “pay expenses associated with the acquisition and use of special facilities in accordance with the decision of the President of the Russian Federation.”

In addition, even under Ivanov, the press actively discussed plans to buy out part of the additional issue of Oboronstroy for a huge 60 billion rubles by Vnesheconombank and enter into the capital of this military joint-stock company along with the Ministry of Defense itself and the main shareholder of Oboronstroy at that time, JSC Garrison. However, by the time the Ministry of Defense bought out the company’s shares in 2016, the structure of Oboronstroy’s share capital was no longer disclosed. And it’s impossible to say definitively whether the project with VEB was implemented at that time. And a year later, in 2017, “Oboronstroy was liquidated as a legal entity in the form of annexation to JSC “Main Directorate for the Arrangement of Troops,” which until recently was its “daughter.”

One of the largest projects of Oboronstroy under Timur Ivanov, which was in plain sight and not classified as “secret,” was the construction of the military-patriotic park “Patriot” on 5.5 thousand hectares for about 20 billion rubles in Kubinka near Moscow.

Timur Ivanov’s transition to work at the ministry roughly coincided with the decision of the Russian government to classify the Ministry of Defense’s procurement not only for strategic purchases, but also for household ones. This was very relevant in those years due to the unhealthy interest of the opposition media and politicians in the topic of state defense spending.

The name of Timur Ivanov was often heard during the final and public part of the conflict between Yevgeny Prigozhin and the Ministry of Defense – the media wrote that it was his creator PMC Wagner who named him as one of his main opponents.

The first public appearance of the new deputy minister in 2016 was the presentation of keys to new apartments to military personnel of the Eastern Military District. Subsequently, he negotiated with civilian energy companies, inspected the construction of strategic facilities in the Arctic and historical ones in the center of St. Petersburg. He supervised the construction of the Nakhimov and Suvorov schools and the Plesetsk cosmodrome, new buildings of the Military Medical Academy and hospitals at Russian foreign military bases. And he even supervised the construction of military facilities of a potential enemy in NATO countries – those were the times back then. In just about 8 years While at his post, the ministry’s press service issued approximately 250 press releases about the work of Timur Ivanov.

The last message about him on the military department website was dated April 20. Last Saturday he took part in the graduation ceremony of military doctors from the St. Petersburg Military Medical Academy.