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Russia's former Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov, a longtime associate of current Security Council head Sergei Shoigu, awaits sentencing behind bars in a Moscow court. Photo: Courts of general jurisdiction of the city of Moscow (@moscowcourts / Telegram)
The Moscow City Court has sentenced former Russian Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov to 13 years in a general-regime penal colony on charges of embezzlement, according to a report by the independent outlet Mediazona. A second defendant in the case, Anton Filatov, the former head of the Defense Ministry subsidiary Oboronlogistika, was sentenced to 12.5 years.
Prosecutors had earlier sought 14.5 years for Ivanov and 14 years for Filatov. The maximum sentence under the statute in question is 15 years in prison.
In addition to the prison term, Ivanov was fined 100 million rubles ($1.27 million) and stripped of his state awards.
Independent journalist Farida Rustamova noted that Ivanov’s sentence marks the longest prison term handed down to a current or former high-ranking Russian official in modern history.
Ivanov has been held in pre-trial detention since April 2024. He was initially charged with accepting a bribe of 1.185 billion rubles ($15.1 million) from a military contractor. Later, charges of money laundering and two separate embezzlement counts — worth 219 million ($2.8 million) rubles and 3.9 billion rubles ($49.8 million) — were added to his case.
Ivanov's sentence could be extended further. In June, Russian state-controlled outlets TASS and RIA Novosti reported that a new case had been opened against the former official, a longtime associate of current Security Council head Sergei Shoigu. Investigators allege that Ivanov received an additional bribe totaling 152 million rubles ($1.94 million).