The Kremlin power struggle intensifies. On Nov. 15, Russia’s Investigative Committee arrested Minister of Economic Development Alexey Ulyukaev, the first time since 1991 that a sitting minister has been arrested. Ulyukaev is accused of corruption, but nothing seems to be as originally stated. Rather, this is a high-level political struggle between President Vladimir Putin’s confidant, Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin, and the remaining liberals in the government. This major political scandal has attracted enormous Russian publicity.
After midnight on Nov. 15, policemen arrested Ulyukaev in his home in the old Stalinist style. He was accused of having received a bribe of $2 million the previous day. Initially, the police claimed to have caught him red-handed, but the independent Novaya Gazeta reported that the cash had been delivered to a bank safe and that Ulyukaev never had it in his hand. The Investigative Committee stated that “the money was given to Ulyukaev as an investigative experiment under the control of the siloviki” and they have not shown any video proving the crime. So was any crime committed?
