MOSCOW: Russia’s ex-Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev on Wednesday accused the head of state oil giant Rosneft, a powerful ally of President Vladimir Putin, of personally entrapping him, as he is accused of taking a massive bribe.
Russia on Wednesday began the first full hearing in Ulyukayev’s bribery trial, the highest-profile criminal case against a top official in decades.
Ulyukayev was arrested in November while still a minister, allegedly caught red-handed after demanding a $2-million (€1.7-million) bribe in return for green lighting state oil giant Rosneft’s acquisition of a stake in another oil company Bashneft.
The 61-year-old denies the charge of massive official bribe taking, for which he could face up to 15 years in prison.
In court he angrily defended himself, saying he was seized in a sting operation organized by the FSB, the successor to the KGB, in “a provocation organized from on high on the basis of a false accusation.”
Ulyukayev said the security services set up the sting on the basis of “fabricated” accusations, “based solely on Sechin’s claims.”
He said he was lured to the Rosneft offices by Sechin. It was there that a case containing the bribe money was handed over. Ulyukayev was arrested, as he tried to drive away with the money in the boot of his car.
Ulyukayev said he went to the meeting after “Sechin called me personally ... and persuaded me to come to Rosneft.”
The prosecution concurs that Sechin set up the meeting and handed over the money, but said he did this in cooperation with the security forces after Ulyukayev demanded the money at a summit in India in return for approving the high-profile Bashneft deal.
Ulyukayev had originally opposed the sale of the stake in Bashneft to Rosneft but later endorsed it after Putin said it could help fill state coffers.
Rosneft’s spokesman Mikhail Leontyev told RIA Novosti state news agency: “The fact remains: Ulyukayev himself demanded unlawful reward for carrying out his official duties, he came to collect it himself and himself left the meeting place with the money. What else can you add?”
The prosecution has asked for Sechin to be summoned as a witness at the trial. A courtroom showdown between such senior figures would be highly unusual and it is unclear whether Sechin will attend in person.
Sechin, 56, formerly served as deputy prime minister and as Putin’s deputy chief of staff and adviser and is a close confidant of the Kremlin strongman. Since taking charge of Rosneft in 2012, he has built it up into the world’s largest publicly traded oil company.
A fluent Portuguese speaker, he worked as a military interpreter in Mozambique and Angola and unconfirmed rumors swirl that he was a KGB spy.
He worked with Putin in Saint Petersburg in the 1990s and moved with him to Moscow to take up posts in the Kremlin. He is seen as a key figure in the clan of powerful security figures known as the “siloviki.”
Wearing a striped blue polo shirt, Ulyukayev sat at a table in the packed courtroom in Moscow’s Zamoskvoretsky district court.
He is being held under house arrest, not in jail, and told journalists before the hearing that he has been reading a short story by Anton Chekhov called “Murder.”
“Chekhov writes a lot about courts and investigators. Nothing has changed in 150 years,” he said.
Ulyukayev’s arrest last year sent shock waves through Russia’s elite.
Recognized as a member of the government’s liberal wing, Ulyukayev had worked with Yegor Gaidar, a former liberal prime minister who masterminded the “shock therapy” economic reforms of the early 1990s blamed by Russians for wiping out their savings.
He had called for reforms including lifting the age of retirement and liberalizing the labor market.
Putin sacked him as economy minister — a job he had held since 2013 — in the wake of his detention.
The next hearing in his trial will be on Sept. 1.
Russia’s former economy minister accuses Putin ally at bribery trial
Russia’s former economy minister accuses Putin ally at bribery trial
Vance’s message in Minneapolis: Local officials must cooperate with the immigration crackdown
- Vance defended ICE agents who detained a 5-year-old boy as he was arriving home from preschool
MINNEAPOLIS: Insisting that he was in Minnesota to calm tensions, Vice President JD Vance on Thursday blamed “far-left people” and state and local law enforcement officials for the chaos that has unfolded during the White House’s aggressive deportation campaign.
The Republican vice president said, “We’re doing everything that we can to lower the temperature,” adding that Minnesota leaders should “meet us halfway.”
The Justice Department is investigating top Democrats in the state, including Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, over whether they have obstructed or impeded immigration enforcement through their public criticism of the administration. Walz and Frey have described the investigation as an attempt to bully the political opposition.
Federal officers stood in a row behind Vance as he spoke, and there were two US Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicles emblazoned with the slogan “Defend the Homeland.”
His visit follows weeks of aggressive rhetoric from the White House, including President Donald Trump, who has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act — and send in military forces — to crack down on unrest. Asked about that option, Vance said, “Right now, we don’t think that we need that.”
Trump dispatched thousands of federal agents to Minnesota earlier this month after reports of child care fraud by Somali immigrants. Minneapolis-area officials, including Frey, as well as the police, religious leaders and the business community have pushed back, and outrage grew after an agent fatally shot Renee Good, a mother of three, during a confrontation this month.
After Vance’s visit, Walz said the federal government was to blame for the turmoil.
“Take the show of force off the streets and partner with the state on targeted enforcement of violent offenders instead of random, aggressive confrontation,” he wrote on social media.
Vance defends actions by ICE agents
Vance has played a leading role in defending the agent who killed Good, and he previously said her death was “a tragedy of her own making.” On Thursday, he repeated claims that Good “rammed” an agent with her car, an account that has been disputed based on videos of the incident.
Minnesota faith leaders, backed by labor unions and hundreds of Minneapolis-area businesses, are planning a day of protests on Friday. Nearly 600 local businesses have announced plans to shut down, while hundreds of “solidarity events” are expected across the country, according to MoveOn spokesperson Britt Jacovich.
Vance defended ICE agents who detained a 5-year-old boy as he was arriving home from preschool.
“When they went to arrest his illegal alien father, the father ran,” Vance said. “So the story is that ICE detained a 5-year-old. Well, what are they supposed to do?”
The boy, who was taken by federal agents along with his father to a detention facility in Texas, was the fourth student from his Minneapolis suburb to be detained by immigration officers in recent weeks.
Asked about reporting that federal authorities are asserting sweeping power to forcibly enter people’s homes without a judge’s warrant, Vance said warrants would still be part of immigration enforcement. But Vance did not specify which kind of warrant he was referring to.
“Nobody is talking about doing immigration enforcement without a warrant,” Vance said. “We’re never going to enter somebody’s house without some kind of warrant, unless of course somebody is firing at an officer and they have to protect themselves.”
The Associated Press reported on Wednesday that federal immigration officers were asserting sweeping power to forcibly enter houses without a judicial warrant, according to an internal ICE memo, in what is a reversal of long-standing guidance meant to respect constitutional limits on government searches.
Instead, the officers can use administrative warrants. Those are issued by ICE officials, as opposed to warrants signed off on by an independent judge.
Vance visited Ohio earlier in the day
During a stop in Toledo, Ohio, on Thursday morning, Vance acknowledged that immigration agents have made mistakes, while declining to be specific.
“Of course there have been mistakes made, because you’re always going to have mistakes made in law enforcement,” he said when asked about Trump’s comments earlier this week that ICE “is going to make mistakes sometimes.”
But Vance said the blame didn’t lie with the federal government.
“The number one way where we could lower the mistakes that are happening, at least with our immigration enforcement, is to have local jurisdictions that are cooperating with us,” he said.
Vance also praised the arrest of protesters who disrupted a church service in Minnesota on Sunday and said he expects more prosecutions to come. The protesters entered the church chanting “ICE out” and “Justice for Renee Good.”
“They’re scaring little kids who are there to worship God on a Sunday morning,” Vance said. He added, “Just as you have the right to protest, they have a right to worship God as they choose. And when you interrupt that, that is a violation of the law.”
Vance took the opportunity to criticize hometown Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur while he was in her Toledo-centered district. A crowded slate of Republicans — including former ICE Deputy Director Madison Sheahan — is vying to take on the longest-serving woman in Congress this fall.
Vance’s stop in Ohio was focused primarily on bolstering the administration’s positive economic message on the heels of Trump’s appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and he showed support for Republicans like gubernatorial contender Vivek Ramaswamy and US Sen. Jon Husted.
Convincing voters that the nation is in rosy financial shape has been a persistent challenge for Trump during the first year of his second term. Polling has shown that the public is unconvinced that the economy is in good condition and majorities disapprove of Trump’s handling of foreign policy.
Vance urged voters to be patient with the economy, saying Trump had inherited a bad situation from Democratic President Joe Biden.
“You don’t turn the Titanic around overnight,” Vance said. “It takes time to fix what is broken.”
