Fancy Sausages and a $2 Million Bribe: A Trial Uncovers Kremlin Infighting
- 6 years ago
Fancy Sausages and a $2 Million Bribe: A Trial Uncovers Kremlin Infighting
Mr. Sechin said the former minister had solicited the bribe in October 2016,
but only with a gesture: During a game of pool, he said, Mr. Ulyukayev held up two fingers, signaling that his price was $2 million.
Speaking of Mr. Sechin’s refusal to testify, Mr. Ulyukayev said the oil executive had vanished
and "only the smell of sulfur in the air was left," a reference to the "The Master and Margarita," the riotous Russian novel by Mikhail Bulgakov about the devil appearing in Stalin’s Moscow.
Mr. Sechin accused Mr. Ulyukayev of seeking the bribe in exchange for dropping objections to the
state oil company’s acquisition of a recently nationalized midsize oil producer, Bashneft.
Judge Semenova sentenced Mr. Ulyukayev, who had been locked in a struggle with Igor I. Sechin, the director of the state oil company Rosneft,
over how to revive the swooning Russian economy, to eight years in a penal colony and a fine of 130 million rubles, or $2.2 million.
15, 2017
MOSCOW — Aleksei V. Ulyukayev, a former economy minister in Russia who had clashed with a close ally of President Vladimir V. Putin,
was convicted on Friday of soliciting a $2 million bribe, in a case that pulled back the curtain on Kremlin infighting.
Mr. Ulyukayev had been a prominent member of a liberal wing in the Russian government,
and he was accused of seeking a huge bribe from Mr. Sechin in exchange for acquiescing to a major oil deal he had initially opposed.
Mr. Sechin said the former minister had solicited the bribe in October 2016,
but only with a gesture: During a game of pool, he said, Mr. Ulyukayev held up two fingers, signaling that his price was $2 million.
Speaking of Mr. Sechin’s refusal to testify, Mr. Ulyukayev said the oil executive had vanished
and "only the smell of sulfur in the air was left," a reference to the "The Master and Margarita," the riotous Russian novel by Mikhail Bulgakov about the devil appearing in Stalin’s Moscow.
Mr. Sechin accused Mr. Ulyukayev of seeking the bribe in exchange for dropping objections to the
state oil company’s acquisition of a recently nationalized midsize oil producer, Bashneft.
Judge Semenova sentenced Mr. Ulyukayev, who had been locked in a struggle with Igor I. Sechin, the director of the state oil company Rosneft,
over how to revive the swooning Russian economy, to eight years in a penal colony and a fine of 130 million rubles, or $2.2 million.
15, 2017
MOSCOW — Aleksei V. Ulyukayev, a former economy minister in Russia who had clashed with a close ally of President Vladimir V. Putin,
was convicted on Friday of soliciting a $2 million bribe, in a case that pulled back the curtain on Kremlin infighting.
Mr. Ulyukayev had been a prominent member of a liberal wing in the Russian government,
and he was accused of seeking a huge bribe from Mr. Sechin in exchange for acquiescing to a major oil deal he had initially opposed.