St. Petersburg police said Friday that they arrested a senior manager at Gazprom Neft, one of Russia’s biggest oil producers, on suspicion of accepting bribes in his previous role at the company’s investment division.
Russia’s Interior Ministry said the senior manager received a motorboat and an apartment in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi valued at 30 million rubles ($387,800) in exchange for ensuring contract bids with Gazprom Invest and “general patronage” between 2021 and 2022.
“Preliminary investigations indicate that the suspect… repeatedly received illegal payments from executives of commercial organizations,” Interior Ministry spokeswoman Irina Volk said without identifying the senior manager by name.
The Interfax news agency, which broke the news of the arrest earlier in the day, reported that the senior manager was Gazprom Neft deputy chairman Anton Dzhalyabov.
Interfax said Dzhalyabov headed a branch of Gazprom Invest in the town of Nadym in the Yamalo-Nenets autonomous district before joining Gazprom Neft.
Dzhalyabov has worked at Gazprom for around 25 years, Russian media reported, and he replaced Vadim Yakovlev as deputy chairman of the board overseeing exploration and production at Gazprom Neft in April 2024.
Law enforcement authorities took Dzhalyabov to Moscow, where investigators plan to ask a judge to place him in pre-trial detention later on Friday.
The state-run TASS news agency, citing anonymous law enforcement sources, later reported that investigators have also charged two construction company executives with bribing Dzhalyabov in exchange for his signing off on work contracts that they had failed to complete.
A Message from The Moscow Times:
Dear readers,
We are facing unprecedented challenges. Russia's Prosecutor General's Office has designated The Moscow Times as an "undesirable" organization, criminalizing our work and putting our staff at risk of prosecution. This follows our earlier unjust labeling as a "foreign agent."
These actions are direct attempts to silence independent journalism in Russia. The authorities claim our work "discredits the decisions of the Russian leadership." We see things differently: we strive to provide accurate, unbiased reporting on Russia.
We, the journalists of The Moscow Times, refuse to be silenced. But to continue our work, we need your help.
Your support, no matter how small, makes a world of difference. If you can, please support us monthly starting from just $2. It's quick to set up, and every contribution makes a significant impact.
By supporting The Moscow Times, you're defending open, independent journalism in the face of repression. Thank you for standing with us.
Remind me later.
