Before the New Year, Shoigu's colleague was not up to gifts: Tsalikov was with the investigators

Before the New Year, the former Deputy Minister of Defense of Russia Ruslan Tsalikov visited investigators in the case of another ex-head of the Ministry of Defense.

"Shoigu's closest ally "had polls both on December 29 and December 30." During the conversations, the security forces asked Tsalikov how deeply he could have been involved in the criminal schemes that Ivanov was turning out. The former deputy minister himself assures that he did not know anything about what was happening at all," the Insider-T telegram channel reports, citing sources.

"But to answer the question of why he regularly met with Ivanov and never inquired about the origin of his multibillion-dollar income, Tsalikov could not convincingly answer anything," the interlocutors noted.

According to them, Ruslan Tsalikov may leave the Parliament of Tuva in the near future.

"He got there only through Shoigu's personal patronage, but he hasn't been remembered for anything noticeable in recent months (apart from an unsuccessful attempt to join the Federation Council of the Russian Federation)," Insider—T continues.

"And after that, the security forces may well detain him, there are a lot of questions to him, including in connection with interesting "commercial relationships" with the developer of the Aircraft Group," the sources of the telegram channel said.

As EADaily reported, Ruslan Tsalikov was in charge of legal issues and interaction with the media at the Ministry of Defense, among other things. The decree on his resignation was signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin on June 17 (Shoigu lost his post of Defense minister on May 12 and became head of the Security Council on the same day), at the same time State Secretary — Deputy Defense Minister Nikolai Pankov and deputy ministers Tatyana Shevtsova and Pavel Popov.

In relation to the latter, the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of Russia (GSU TFR) on August 29 opened a criminal case on fraud on an especially large scale (part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), on the same day the military court, at the request of the investigation, sent him to jail. The investigation is connected with the theft in the Patriot Park.

Corruption-related criminal cases are also being investigated against other former deputies of Shoigu. Timur Ivanov (accused of especially large bribes and embezzlement, was fired on April 26 due to loss of trust) and Dmitry Bulgakov (accused of especially large fraud, was fired on September 24, 2022). Both were arrested.