At first glance, the timing of the detention of Timur Ivanov, one of Shoigu’s 12 deputy ministers, is unexpected – at a time when Russia is at war in Ukraine and authorities have declared discrediting the army a crime punishable by prison.
Allegations of bribes to fund a lifestyle beyond his means leveled against Ivanov, 48, by the anti-corruption foundation of the late opposition politician Alexei Navalny, have been public for more than a year with no apparent consequences.
Yet this week, state television suddenly showed Russians a bewildered-looking Ivanov, who denies wrongdoing, dressed in full military uniform, standing in a clear plastic courtroom cage that so many Kremlin foes have occupied before him.
His arrest, Russian political analysts, including some former insiders, say shows how the war is shaping up to be a struggle between “clans” vying for wealth and influence in Russia’s hard-elbowed political system.
The clans – unions of like-minded people, officials or businessmen – are centered around the military, intelligence and law enforcement services, the military-industrial complex and include a group of people from President Vladimir Putin’s native St. Petersburg who have known him personally for many years.
“Someone in the elite didn’t like the fact that Shoigu had gotten stronger,” Tatyana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Eurasian Center for Russia, told Reuters.
“This is not coming from Putin, but from people who are close to Putin and who think that Shoigu has gone too far. This is just a fight against someone and a ministry that has become too powerful, and an attempt to balance the situation.”
Abbas Galyamov, a former Kremlin spokesman who is now designated by authorities as a “foreign agent,” has said he also sees the detention as an attack on Shoigu that will weaken him.
“Ivanov is one of the closest people to Shoigu. His arrest on the eve of the appointment of a new government suggests that the chances of the current minister to remain in his chair are sharply decreasing,” he commented.
According to Russian state media, Ivanov was arrested as a result of an FSB counterintelligence investigation.
Lucrative military contracts
Ivanov’s case is the most high-profile corruption case since Putin sent troops to Ukraine in 2022. State media reported that Shoigu had removed Ivanov from his post.
The scandal comes just two weeks before Putin is inaugurated for a fifth term as president and ahead of a government reshuffle expected next month that would in theory leave Shoigu’s job vacant.
Ivanov was in charge of lucrative construction and supply contracts for the military and is accused of taking huge bribes in favors worth, according to Russian media, at least 1 billion rubles ($10.8 million/BGN 19.90 million) in return of awarding contracts to the Ministry of Defense to certain companies.
While few would bet on Shoigu losing his job over the scandal, given his loyalty to Putin, Ivanov’s arrest is seen as a reversal for his boss, whose influence and access to the Kremlin chief has been boosted by his key role in the war in Ukraine.
Moscow Times quoted a senior government official as calling the arrest a major blow to Shoigu’s camp, and quoted a source close to the defense ministry as saying the arrest had more to do with politics and the “weakening of Sergei Shoigu’s position” than with Ivanov .
Shoigu and the army’s high command have at times come under fierce criticism from Russian military bloggers and nationalists who have accused him, especially after a series of retreats in 2022, of incompetence.
Shoigu survived a failed coup led by the leader of Wagner’s mercenaries, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who died in a plane crash, and who last June organized a march in Moscow to try to oust him, but his authority has been damaged. Putin said the events could have led to civil war in Russia.
“A Plague Feast”
Since then, Shoigu has managed to regain Putin’s trust, but the arrest of his deputy is another setback.
“This indirectly harms Shoigu. Questions arise. How is it possible that a person who was close to him and whom he attracted, managed to steal so much under the nose of Shoigu himself?” said Carnegie’s Stanovaya.
Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser, predicted that Shoigu, in office since 2012, would keep his job regardless.
“Everyone is wondering – could this be a signal to Shoigu that he will not be in the next government after May 7?” Markov wrote in his official blog.
“Calm down. He will be. Shoigu created a new army after the disastrous 2022, which in 2023 repelled the advance of the Ukrainian army. And in 2024, the army is already advancing.”
Many of the circumstances surrounding Ivanov’s arrest remain unknown.
There are many theories circulating in Moscow about whether the bribery charge is the whole story, and unconfirmed media reports suggest he may also be charged with treason, which his lawyer denies.
Some have suggested that perhaps his love of the Western way of life, at a time when Putin claims that Russia is waging an existential struggle with the West, was the cause of his downfall.
Others believe that his family’s penchant for luxury European vacations, yacht charters, Rolls-Royce cars and lavish parties was normal before the war, but is now seen as “plague feasting”, a Russian literary reference (play of Alexander Pushkin).
Shoigu has remained silent on the scandal, inspecting a space launch facility this week as if nothing had happened.
The Kremlin told journalists to rely only on official sources and specified that the often large-scale construction projects that Ivanov has overseen – such as the rebuilding of the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol – would not be affected.
