The last several months have featured a series of scandalous, high-profile arrests and resignations that have shaken up the Russian political establishment. None of those episodes lived up to what happened on Nov. 15. This time, the case is of legitimately historic proportions: a Russian federal minister, Alexey Ulyukaev, was arrested on suspicion of extortion.
Ulyukaev is easily the most senior official ever detained and arrested in Russia. Defense Minister Anatoly Serdukov was involved in a high-profile case where several billions in public funds were alleged to be embezzled. But Serdukov was never detained nor charged. The Head of the Federal Custom Service, Andrey Belianinov, recently had his properties searched and had almost $1 million in cash found in his home. He was never charged, however, although he did lose his job. And technically, Belianinov was not a minister. The Federal Customs Service had ministerial status until January 2016, at which point it was subjugated to the Finance Ministry. The closest parallel came in 2007, when Deputy Finance Minister Sergey Storchak was detained by the FSB and charged with attempted fraud. He remained under arrest in a detention facility – the notorious Lefortovo jail in Moscow – for 11 months, but was released later due to lack of evidence.
