The second criminal case of former Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov, accused of receiving bribes totaling more than 1.3 billion rubles, has reached the court. in the form of construction work, non-repayable loans and the construction of a bathhouse, as well as other crimes. During the preliminary hearing, the ex-official, who was already serving a 13-year sentence, had his detention extended for six months, leaving his property under arrest for the same time, the lion’s share of which had previously been turned into state income.
At the hearing of Timur Ivanov, as well as the co-owner of one of the largest contractors of the Ministry of Defense, the Olympsitistroy company, Alexander Fomin, who was involved with him in the case, in the Simonovsky Court of Moscow, they were led through the guard premises, bypassing reporters and relatives. The latter were divided into two “camps,” one of which included the parents and Maria Kitaeva, the common-law wife of Timur Ivanov, who does not admit guilt, and the second, the wife and lawyer of Mr. Fomin, who agreed to admit the charges. They kept a demonstrative distance from each other. At the same time, the entrepreneur’s defender Lyudmila Kucherova immediately told a Kommersant correspondent that there would be no comments.
Until recently, it remained unclear why the case was sent to the Simonovsky court, which does not indulge the public with high-profile trials. It turned out that this was connected with the alleged location of corruption crimes, which the investigation considered to be the office of Mr. Fomin’s company.
The hearing, which by law was held behind closed doors, took almost three hours. Before the start of the hearing, Mr. Ivanov’s defense attorney, Murad Musaev, recalled that his client is a defendant in two cases. “According to the first, he has already been sentenced to real imprisonment. If there is a sentence, even changing his preventive measure to a more lenient one, which in itself is unlikely, will not lead to his release, because he will still remain behind bars,” the lawyer said, however, adding that the defense will still insist on the release of the ex-deputy minister, “because there are no grounds to keep him behind bars.”
Let us recall that on July 1, 2025, the Moscow City Court sentenced Timur Ivanov to 13 years and a fine of 100 million rubles. for embezzlement of more than 4 billion rubles. when purchasing ferries for the Crimean crossing and funds from the Interkommerts Bank, as well as laundering part of the stolen property (Article 160 and Article 174.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
At the meeting on April 17, the defendant’s lawyers asked to reject the request of the prosecutors (two state prosecutors are involved in the case), who called for keeping both defendants in pre-trial detention for another six months, during the trial. State prosecutors also proposed to extend the period of seizure of the defendants’ property for the same period.
The latter request also raised objections from the defense, mainly because, as the lawyers pointed out, on December 5 last year, the Presnensky Court of Moscow, at the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office, had already converted into state income the “lion’s share” of the property of Mr. Ivanov and his relatives in the amount of 1.2 billion rubles, the arrest of which prosecutors asked to extend.
However, after listening to the arguments of the parties, Judge Valentina Trofimova granted both requests from the prosecutor’s office, leaving the defendants and their property under arrest until the end of October.
Let us remember that Mr. Ivanov’s case, which reached the court, was in fact initiated first.
It was within the framework of this that the Basmanny Court of Moscow, on April 24, 2024, authorized the arrest of the official, who was later fired “due to loss of trust.” The defendant is charged with three counts of receiving bribes. The largest, in the amount of 1.185 billion rubles, is the receipt of a bribe from Alexander Fomin in the form of services for the repair of the building of the city estate of S. Volkonskaya – A. K. von Mecca of the 19th-20th centuries, which is located in the capital’s Chisty Lane opposite the residence of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus’ Kirill, as well as for the construction of the Pankratovo estate in the Tver region. The owners of the objects were LLC “Dvoryanskoe Gnezdo” and LLC “Volzhsky Bereg”, the actual head of which was Sergei Borodin, a confidant of the ex-Deputy Minister of Defense. In exchange for this, the investigation believes, the military department concluded multibillion-dollar contracts with Mr. Fomin’s companies “Olympsitistroy” and “Oboronspetsstroy” for the construction and restoration of a number of military department facilities.
During the investigation, the businessmen admitted guilt, and Mr. Borodin entered into a pre-trial cooperation agreement with the prosecutor’s office, testifying against Timur Ivanov. His case has been separated into separate proceedings and will be considered independently.
Messrs. Ivanov and Borodin were charged with receiving bribes on an especially large scale (Part 6 of Article 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), and Mr. Fomin was charged with giving one bribe (Article 291 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
In addition to corruption episodes, Mr. Ivanov was charged with legalization of criminal proceeds, as well as illegal storage and manufacture of weapons (Part 4 of Article 174.1, Article 222 and Article 223 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). He denied his guilt throughout the investigation, however, by the end of the investigation, he probably changed his mind somewhat.
Before sending the case to court, he also expressed a desire to conclude a pre-trial cooperation agreement with the prosecutor’s office, promising to talk about the illegal activities of certain officials, as well as about the property they illegally acquired in exchange for reclassifying his charges from bribery to abuse of power (Article 285 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). However, the prosecutor’s office and the investigation were obviously not interested in this proposal. According to the ex-deputy minister’s lawyers, the defense and the accused did not receive a response to this proposal, which means that it was rejected.
The court scheduled a hearing on the merits of the case for April 24 in open mode. On this day, prosecutors are expected to announce the indictment, and the defendants will express their views on it.
As Kommersant previously reported, during the investigation, Mr. Ivanov partially admitted his guilt. He expressed a version according to which Mr. Fomin’s companies did not build and repair for him personally. The ex-Deputy Minister of Defense stated that he was a co-owner of the businessman’s companies and acted as a co-investor in construction projects – estates, which were later planned to be put up for sale. “That is, he admits that he was engaged in business while holding a position in the civil service, in partnership with one of the contractors,” said Murad Musaev. As for the remaining episodes, as the lawyer said, his client still denies guilt.
