A deputy minister of defence in Russia has been detained on charges of taking a “large-scale” bribe, the country’s top law enforcement investigators announced on Tuesday.

The brief announcement from the Investigative Committee divulged few details about what had led to Timur Ivanov, the deputy minister, being taken into custody. But the legal statute that he is accused of violating is for taking a bribe “on a particularly large scale”, more than 1 million rubles (more than $10,000). The ministry of defence did not comment on the investigation.

Ivanov, a deputy defence minister since 2016, had long been in charge of military construction projects, including most recently the huge contracts awarded to rebuild the Russian-occupied eastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, which was devastated by Russian attacks soon after the February 2022 invasion.

He was also responsible for building Patriot Park, a military theme space outside Moscow that featured exhibits of weaponry and a Russian Orthodox cathedral that sought to cast the experiences of the Russian armed forces in a holy light.

He was awarded the Order for Merit to the Fatherland several times.

Ivanov was known as a protégé of Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defence minister who is a close associate of President Vladimir Putin.

New York Times News Service