Russian defence chief suffers blow in Moscow power games

Russian deputy defence minister Timur Ivanov attended a meeting of the military’s top brass this week, sitting a seat away from his boss and wearing the uniform of one of the highest-ranking officials in the country.

Hours later, Ivanov was taken to a courtroom, still wearing the same uniform but now under arrest on suspicion of corruption and facing many years in jail. 

The downfall of a man whose opulent lifestyle was known and tolerated by the Kremlin for years deals a significant blow to his longtime mentor, defence minister Sergei Shoigu, at a time when much of the country’s political elite is expecting an imminent reshuffle.

President Vladimir Putin, who will be inaugurated into his new term in office next month, is expected to submit a fresh cabinet for approval — triggering a scramble for power behind the scenes.

Amid the jockeying, Shoigu’s team had initially appeared to be on the rise, bolstered by recent Russian advances in Ukraine and the death of warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was Shoigu’s most vocal critic and rival.

But the arrest of Ivanov, the highest-ranking official to be detained since 2016, signalled a shift in Shoigu’s fortunes, said a person close to the Russian defence ministry, particularly considering the highly visible manner in which the deputy minister was taken to court. 

“They could have fired him first if they just wanted to weaken Shoigu. It would show they got rid of corruption,” the person said.

“Instead, they arrested him in office, in uniform, right after the defence ministry board meeting where he had been sitting one seat away from Shoigu. It’s all theatre,” the person said. “What is the sense if not to undermine Shoigu?”

With Putin known to prioritise loyalty above all, Shoigu has so far survived in his role despite humiliating failures during the first weeks of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the fact that a “special military operation” meant to last three days has now dragged into its third year. 

The defence chief also withstood virulent criticism from Prigozhin, who attempted a mutiny against Shoigu and other military leaders last year. After the uprising was halted, Shoigu remained in office, and two months later Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash.  

But Putin, who is known to be wary of any faction in his elite gaining too much strength, appears to have concluded that the Kremlin needs to find a new way to counterbalance the power centre of Shoigu and the defence ministry now that Prigozhin no longer plays this role, said another person among the Moscow elite.

Prigozhin’s crass rants, delivered on social media directly from the battlefield in Ukraine, mostly called out theft and corruption in the army and blamed Russia’s frontline failures on the greed of the defence establishment elite. 

The late warlord’s message was that “you need to deal with these rats in the rear who are stealing”, they said. Putin thinks Prigozhin “went too far, but he also thinks he was not wrong . . . You need to take them down a peg.” 

Ivanov’s extravagant lifestyle, blatantly beyond his official means, made him an easy target, added the person in Moscow’s elite circles.

“This guy was so flamboyant and so was his wife. Putin doesn’t care about corruption that much — you need a certain amount to allow things to happen. But there is still a limit,” the person said.

Several investigations by activists and journalists in recent years have laid bare the luxuries enjoyed by Ivanov and his family.

In 2022, the anti-corruption team of late opposition leader Alexei Navalny obtained the email inbox of Ivanov’s wife and produced a blistering 40-minute film documenting his villas, Rolls-Royce cars and lavish holidays, all backed up by private photos, invoices and bills. 

One of the Anti-Corruption Foundation’s discoveries was the long-standing relationship between Ivanov and a company called Olimpcitystroi, which won large military construction contracts, including most recently for the reconstruction of Mariupol, the Ukrainian city that Russia’s army pulverised and occupied in 2022. 

The foundation’s investigators alleged that the construction company had paid numerous private bills on behalf of Ivanov’s wife, including to sponsor her purchases of jewellery and the renovation of the family’s luxury villa. 

A Moscow court has frozen Ivanov’s assets after Russia’s criminal investigations department on Tuesday said that Ivanov had been arrested for accepting a bribe, which can carry a sentence of up to 15 years.

That same day, a co-founder of Olimpcitystroi, Alexander Fomin, was also detained and accused of offering the bribe.

Both Ivanov and Fomin deny the allegations, according to Ria, a state news agency. Neither Ivanov’s wife nor the construction company have responded publicly to the accusations since the deputy defence minister’s arrest.

“Inside the Russian system, everyone knows he’s corrupt on the basis that he is a member of the Russian system. So, why now? That’s the key question,” said General Sir Jim Hockenhull, head of the British army’s Strategic Command and a longtime Russia watcher.

“Inevitably, in a clique where power is largely distributed by patronage, [people] sometimes end up on the wrong side of someone’s ire,” said Hockenhull.

With the war dragging on, “that clique, which is all about power and money, has more pressure building on it”, he said. “Everyone tries to justify their own position.”

Occasionally, someone is selected to “pick up the blame for things”, added Hockenhull. “It becomes a sort of cleansing moment.”

Additional reporting by John Paul Rathbone in London