Another close associate of Russian Deputy Minister Timur Ivanov, detained for embezzlement / A story of corruption, rivalries and betrayal

Anton Filatov, a former subordinate of Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov, who was arrested this week, was also detained on suspicion of embezzlement, TASS and Kommersant news agencies reported on Saturday. However, the story would be more complicated, and iStories claims that the accusations of corruption would only be a facade, and in the middle would be betrayal. Instead, Reuters cites analysts who see the corruption scandal as an attempt to weaken the Minister of Defense, Serghei Șoigu.

Anton Filatov managed several companies subordinate to the Ministry of Defense, and worked until 2019 at Oboronlogistics LLC, a company that presents itself as the sole provider of transport services for the Ministry of Defense and is linked to Timur Ivanov, writes Kommersant.

Filatov is accused of embezzlement or illegal appropriation of someone else’s property, committed on a large scale. He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

This is the fourth person arrested in the Ivanov case, notes The Insider, after the Basmanny Court ruled on the preventive arrest of Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov in a bribery case. The investigation believes that Ivanov created a criminal organization in a case related to the contracting and subcontracting of works for the Ministry of Defense. He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

The scandal will not leave Serghei Șoigu without image damage, in the context in which Ivanov was a close ally of the Minister of Defense. State news agency TASS quoted a source as saying Shoigu had fired Ivanov since his arrest. TASS said investigators seized all bank accounts and assets of Ivanov and his family.

A corruption case with many arrests

In this case, the entrepreneur Sergey Borodin and Alexander Fomin, the founder of the construction company OlimpSitiStroy, were also arrested. Fomin is accused of bribery (art. 291 of the Criminal Code), Ivanov and Borodin are accused of receiving bribes. The defendants in the case have already appealed to preventive arrest, and Ivanov denies his guilt.

Alexander Fomin at the court, after he was detained. PHOTO Basmanny District Court press service / AP / Profimedia

Fomin, “being in a relationship of trust with Ivanov”, is suspected of providing free services to the latter, Borodin and others.

“Also, Fomin and other persons, acting as an organized group, contributed to Ivanov receiving a particularly large bribe in the form of illegal provision of property-related services,” according to the court.

Kommersant wrote that investigators suspect Ivanov of receiving bribes from Fomin in exchange for helping his company win contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

An attempt to weaken Serghei Șoigu

Some analysts see the dossier as an attempt to weaken Shoigu and a sign of tensions and rivalries within Russia’s elite as Putin prepares to name a new government next month after being re-elected in March for another six years. Reuters reports.

Shoigu, however, is expected to keep his job. Under his leadership, Russian forces have regrouped and regained the initiative in Ukraine and have made a number of gains over the past two months.

Ivanov, who has served as deputy minister since 2016, was responsible for managing property, construction and mortgages at the Defense Ministry, whose spending has spiraled since the start of the war.

He has long been the subject of journalistic investigations.

Russia’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, headed by the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, claimed that Ivanov and his family lived a life of luxury, with yachts, helicopters, visits to the French Riviera, diamond purchases and a 19th-century mansion in Moscow.

Forbes magazine listed Ivanov as one of the richest men in Russia’s security structures. Other investigations suggested the corruption case was opened amid Russia’s reconstruction of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, now controlled by Russian forces.

At the center of the accusations of corruption would actually lie treason

However, according to the independent Russian website specializing in investigative journalism, iStories, the bribery charge against Timur Ivanov is a front charge.

Two independent sources close to the FSB told iStories that the real reason for the arrest of Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov was treason.

“The bribe is for the public. So far they don’t want to talk publicly about the betrayal – it’s a big scandal,” says one of our sources.

“No one would have detained him for corruption. Everyone there [din Kremlin] they knew about it for a long time. Putin gave the order after he managed to convince us that this was a matter of treason,” says another source.

Russian law enforcement agencies have had compromising material on Ivanov for many years, and these related to Ivanov’s activities as head of Oboronstroy, his friend Sergei Shoigu, the Minister of Defense, did not allow the information to be published.

Before working at the Ministry of Defense, Ivanov headed JSC Oboronstroy. In 2019, he entered the ranking of the richest security officials in Russia, according to Forbes, with an annual income of 136.7 million rubles.

In 2013, when Timur Ivanov became the head of Oboronstroy, Anton Filatov also moved to management positions in enterprises under the Ministry of Defense

On the other hand, Ukrinform wrote that in March 2024 GUR agents executed a cyber attack, obtaining a significant batch of confidential data and official documents of Ivanov.

Which led GUR to believe that the leak of sensitive data and the fact that Ukrainian intelligence services obtained this data were the real reasons behind the deputy minister’s arrest.

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