The Moscow court rejects a request for house arrest against a deputy defense minister accused of bribery

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — A Moscow court on Wednesday rejected an appeal from a Russian deputy defense minister’s lawyers who had asked for the Russian deputy defense minister to be moved from prison to house arrest on charges of bribery.

Timur Ivanov, who was in charge of military construction projects, was arrested on April 23 and charged with accepting large-scale bribes. After the hearing in Moscow City Court, Russian news agencies quoted his lawyer Murad Musayev as saying the case involved allegations worth about 1 billion rubles ($11 million) and that Ivanov had been suspended.

Two other men were arrested in the case.

It is rare in Russia for such a high-ranking official to be charged with a crime, and it is unclear what led to the decision to arrest him.

Late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s team conducted anti-corruption investigations and accused Ivanov, an ally of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, of leading a lavish lifestyle.

Ivanov, 48, was hit with sanctions by both the United States and the European Union in 2022 following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Russian media reported that Ivanov oversaw some construction work in Mariupol, a Ukrainian port city that was destroyed by bombing and occupied by Russian forces early in the war.

Zvezda, the Russian military’s official television channel, reported in the summer of 2022 that the ministry was building an entire apartment block in Mariupol and showed Ivanov inspecting construction sites and newly constructed buildings.

Few other senior officials have been prosecuted in Russia.

In April 2023, former Deputy Culture Minister Olga Yarilova was arrested and charged with embezzling more than 200 million rubles (US$2.2 million). Yarilova, who held office from 2018 to 2022, is on trial and faces a possible seven-year prison sentence.

Former economy minister Alexei Ulyukayev was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2017 for accepting a $2 million bribe from one of Putin’s top aides. The high-profile trial was widely seen as part of a power struggle between Kremlin clans. Ulyukayev, now 68, was released early from prison in May 2022.