ACF requests France to impose sanctions against the wife of Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister

The Anti-Corruption Foundation appealed to the French authorities with a request to expel Svetlana Ivanova, the wife of Russian Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov, from the country and freeze her assets. As the wife of one of Putin’s top military officers, Ivanova is still not subject to EU sanctions, she continues to live in France and launder the bloody money that her husband has earned on the war in Ukraine. We have sent letters on this to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and its subordinate, General Directorate for Foreigners in France. 

Ivanov was appointed Deputy Defense Minister in 2016. Before that, he had worked for many years for the Moscow government and Oboronstroy, a company subordinate to the Defense Ministry. Now he is one of Putin’s top military officers, who is responsible for managing the Defense Ministry’s assets and for all departmental construction projects.

We found multiple confirmations that his family’s expenditures exceed their official incomes many times over. For example, in 2020, Ivanov and his wife earned about 294,000 euros. That same year, his wife alone spent about 1.3 million euros. The Ivanov family regularly vacationed on the Côte d’Azur in France. From 2013 to 2018, they spent about 850 thousand euros on renting villas in Saint-Tropez. Another 250,000 euros was spent on yacht rentals and 200,000 euros on the purchase and maintenance of their vacation car, a 2001 Rolls-Royce Corniche.

Our investigation proves that this is corrupt money coming from government contracts. Now Ivanov is making money by supervising construction projects in the occupied regions of Ukraine. The Ivanovs own several elite estates in Russia worth hundreds of millions of rubles. The family spends hundreds of millions more on their repairs. Some of these expenses were paid by companies that are major contractors of the Ministry of Defense and carry out construction in the occupied Mariupol.

After the war broke out, Svetlana and Timur formalized a fictitious divorce in order to secure the family’s assets from sanctions. We have gradually proven this in our investigation. Thus, even now, while Putin is destroying Ukrainian cities, Svetlana Ivanova continues to travel to France. She lives there for months and spends hundreds of thousands of euros on her luxurious lifestyle. By buying art and jewelry in France, Svetlana Ivanova launders her husband’s corrupt money and helps him evade international sanctions.

Timur Ivanov is effectively using France as a haven for the money he obtained by criminal means. This poses a serious threat to public order and directly contradicts France’s efforts to put pressure on Russia and Putin’s elites.

We ask France to freeze all assets of the Ivanov family on the territory of the Republic, expel Svetlana Ivanova from the country and prohibit her from entering it. We also ask to initiate the introduction of European sanctions against her. This would not only be a fair action against the family of Putin’s military official, but also a demonstration of intolerance for circumventing sanctions and laundering blood money.