A Moscow court on Tuesday sentenced former Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov to 13 years in prison on corruption charges.
Ivanov, who had overseen military construction projects since his 2016 appointment, was arrested in April 2024. His case marked the start of a wider Kremlin-led crackdown on corruption within the Defense Ministry, which has seen the arrests of several other high-ranking officers.
Initially charged with bribery, prosecutors later accused Ivanov of embezzling 4.1 billion rubles ($52.4 million) through foreign bank transfers and an additional 216 million rubles ($2.7 million) during the purchase of two ferries for a crossing between Russia and annexed Crimea.
In addition to prison time, the Moscow City Court fined the 49-year-old ex-defense official 100 million rubles ($1.2 million) and stripped him of his state awards, the exiled news outlet Mediazona reported. Court hearings in the case had been held behind closed doors since March.
Prosecutors had sought a 14.5-year prison sentence.
Independent journalist Farida Rustamova said Ivanov’s sentence is the longest for a current or former high-ranking Russian government official in modern history.
The court in Moscow also sentenced Anton Filatov, the former head of the Defense Ministry subsidiary Oboronlogistika, to 12.5 years in prison.
Nicknamed the “glamorous general” in Russian media, Ivanov is the most senior military official arrested since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. He was widely considered a close ally of ex-Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who was dismissed in May 2024 and appointed secretary of Russia’s Security Council.
In 2018, Forbes Russia ranked Ivanov among the wealthiest members of the country’s military and security elite, estimating his family’s net worth at 136.7 million rubles ($1.5 million).
Ivanov has been under U.S. and EU sanctions since 2022 due to his role overseeing military construction in the Defense Ministry. Last month, Russian state media reported that he is also the subject of a new bribery case.
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