A “big scandal” behind the arrest of Russian Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov

Russia's deputy defense minister was arrested Wednesday, just hours after he attended a meeting of top military leaders, according to federal investigators.

Timur Ivanov has been officially accused of accepting a huge bribe, but some sources say it's just for show.

“Bribery – this is for the public. So far they don’t want to talk publicly about the betrayal, it is a big scandal. He is the Deputy Minister of Defense,” an unnamed source close to the FSB told the independent Russian news outlet. iStories.

“No one would have arrested him for corruption. Everyone is there [in the Kremlin] I knew about it for a long time. Another source was quoted as saying: “Putin gave the order after it became clear that this was specifically a matter of treason.”

Details of the charges against Ivanov were not immediately clear. But the deputy defense minister was reportedly involved in a whole series of shady dealings, including enriching himself from the war against Ukraine through construction contracts in the devastated port city of Mariupol, according to a report by the investigative outlet. file.

Ivanov was also reportedly one of many who demanded to collect assets left behind by Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin after the warlord suffered a violent and fiery death in a plane crash last year. Prigozhin reportedly got into a public dispute with Ivanov, even in the presence of Vladimir Putin, calling him an “embezzler.”

Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that Ivanov is widely seen as a close ally of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who quite literally had a target on his back as the Wagner Group gained power in the war against Ukraine.

The VChK-OGPU Telegram channel quoted an unnamed source as saying that Ivanov's arrest represented a “catastrophic blow to Shoigu.” Another source was quoted as saying to the channel that the identity of the bribe provider in the Ivanov case will explain everything.