A long-serving Russian minister has been detained over an alleged US$2 million bribe in an investigation of the most senior government official to face charges in years, investigators said yesterday.
Russian Minister of Economic Development Alexei Ulyukayev was detained late on Monday after he allegedly received a US$2 million bribe in a sting set by the FSB, the KGB’s main successor agency, the Investigative Committee said in a statement.
The investigators said Ulyukayev took the bribe for giving the green light to state-controlled oil giant Rosneft to take part in bidding for another oil company.
Ulyukayev, who held the post since 2013 and worked in the government since 2000, is a known liberal figure who has spoken against an increasing government presence in the Russian economy.
He has opposed Rosneft’s bidding for Bashneft, saying it was wrong for a state-owned company to take part in the privatization drive.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had defended the deal, saying that because Rosneft has minority foreign investors, the sale was not simply a transfer of assets from one part of the state to another.
The lucrative Bashneft was transferred to government ownership in 2014 after owner Vladimir Yevtushenkov was charged with money laundering and accused of acquiring the company illegally.
The charges were later dropped.
Yevtushenkov’s arrest was then widely seen as Rosneft’s move to take control of Bashneft, which was posting an industry-leading growth in oil production.
The government put 50.1 percent of Bashneft on the market earlier this year, but the tender was postponed in August over the opposition of the government’s liberal ministers, including Ulyukayev, to Rosneft’s potential bidding.
Rosneft won the tender with a US$5 billion offer when the bidding was held last month.
The 60-year old minister was expected to face a court hearing later yesterday, when he could be formally arrested and charged.
Russian state-owned television early yesterday ran Ulyukayev’s detention as the top story headlined “Fight on corruption.”
Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the RIA Novosti news agency that the president had been informed of the FSB operation in its planning stage.
Peskov would not say whether the bribery case could affect Rosneft’s deal.
Rosneft spokesman Mikhail Leontyev said in televised comments that he does not expect the investigation to affect the deal.
“There cannot be any threat of the cancelation of the deal,” Leontyev said on Rossiya 24. “No one, including the Investigative Committee, has expressed any questions about the legality of the deal.”
Banking and finance professionals were aghast at the Ulyukayev case.
“This is a big tragedy,” Bella Zlatkis, deputy chairwoman of Russia’s biggest lender Sberbank, told Russia news agencies. “I feel really sorry about what happened and even the very fact that such an investigation is taking place.”
Alexander Shokhin, head of a major business lobbying group, told the RBC television channel that he was convinced Ulyukayev was innocent and said he might have been framed.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday vowed that those behind bogus flood control projects would be arrested before Christmas, days after deadly back-to-back typhoons left swathes of the country underwater. Scores of construction firm owners, government officials and lawmakers — including Marcos’ cousin congressman — have been accused of pocketing funds for substandard or so-called “ghost” infrastructure projects. The Philippine Department of Finance has estimated the nation’s economy lost up to 118.5 billion pesos (US$2 billion) since 2023 due to corruption in flood control projects. Criminal cases against most of the people implicated are nearly complete, Marcos told reporters. “We don’t file cases for
Ecuadorans are today to vote on whether to allow the return of foreign military bases and the drafting of a new constitution that could give the country’s president more power. Voters are to decide on the presence of foreign military bases, which have been banned on Ecuadoran soil since 2008. A “yes” vote would likely bring the return of the US military to the Manta air base on the Pacific coast — once a hub for US anti-drug operations. Other questions concern ending public funding for political parties, reducing the number of lawmakers and creating an elected body that would
‘ATTACK ON CIVILIZATION’: The culture ministry released drawings of six missing statues representing the Roman goddess of Venus, the tallest of which was 40cm Investigators believe that the theft of several ancient statues dating back to the Roman era from Syria’s national museum was likely the work of an individual, not an organized gang, officials said on Wednesday. The National Museum of Damascus was closed after the heist was discovered early on Monday. The museum had reopened in January as the country recovers from a 14-year civil war and the fall of the 54-year al-Assad dynasty last year. On Wednesday, a security vehicle was parked outside the main gate of the museum in central Damascus while security guards stood nearby. People were not allowed in because
A feud has broken out between the top leaders of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on whether to maintain close ties with Russia. The AfD leader Alice Weidel this week slammed planned visits to Russia by some party lawmakers, while coleader Tino Chrupalla voiced a defense of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The unusual split comes at a time when mainstream politicians have accused the anti-immigration AfD of acting as stooges for the Kremlin and even spying for Russia. The row has also erupted in a year in which the AfD is flying high, often polling above the record 20 percent it
RSS