Deputy Defense Minister of Russia Timur Ivanov Is Suspected of State Treason, According to IStories’ Sources

Two unrelated sources of IStories close to the FSB said that the real reason for the arrest of Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov is state treason.

“Bribery is for the public. So far they do not want to talk publicly about state treason — the scandal is big: after all, it’s the deputy defense minister,” one of our sources said.

“No one would ever detain him for corruption. Everyone there [in the Kremlin] knew about it for a long time. Putin gave the order after they managed to convince that it was about state treason,” another source says.

Russian law enforcement agencies have been in possession of compromising materials on Ivanov for many years. An investigator of the Investigative Committee told Roman Anin, IStories’ editor-in-chief, about this back in 2017. According to him, the materials collected by the Investigative Committee concerned Ivanov’s activities as head of Oboronstroy. However, the Russian authorities did not allow the materials to be activated at that time: Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stood up for Ivanov.

“Shoigu personally called Yuriev [head of the Military Counterintelligence Directorate of FSB — DVKR FSB] and profanely berated him for the FSB going after his close one,” the investigator of the Investigative Committee said.

According to our interlocutors, the DVKR FSB is also engaged in operational assistance of the current case against Ivanov. “Now they are deciding what to do with him: either they will lock him up on bribery and ‘finish’ him off in custody, or reclassify the charge to treason,” says our source close to the FSB.

• Timur Ivanov was detained on April 23 at his workplace, shortly before that he had participated in a Defense Ministry board headed by Sergei Shoigu. Forbes Russia’s source claims that Ivanov’s prosecution is a “purge of the minister’s cronies” before Shoigu’s possible departure.

• Already on Wednesday, the Basmanny District Court of Moscow sent him to a pre-trial detention center on the case of taking a bribe on a particularly large scale (leads to 8 to 15 years in a penal colony). In the courtroom, Ivanov, a civilian employee of the Defense Ministry, stood in the uniform of a 1st class Active State Councillor. His friend Sergei Borodin was arrested in the same case. According to the investigation version, Ivanov and Borodin colluded with third parties to receive a particularly large bribe of property “while carrying out contract and subcontract works for the needs of the Ministry of Defense.”

• Before joining the Defense Ministry, Ivanov headed Oboronstroy JSC. In 2019, he entered the ranking of the richest law enforcers in Russia according to Forbes with an annual income of 136.7 million rubles with real earnings of 13.6 million. According to data from investigations by ACF and Project, Ivanov and his ex-spouse Svetlana Maniovich have real estate, antiques, jewelry and cars worth millions of euros — including in NATO countries. One of the Ivanovs’ sponsors was a contractor of a company engaged in construction in occupied Mariupol.

• Sergei Borodin, for his part, has Ivanov’s cottage in Tver, and he also managed Svetlana Maniovich’s business.