Moscow police arrested several former deputies of exiled former Kremlin aide and veteran reformer Anatoly Chubais, Russian media reported Thursday, citing anonymous law enforcement sources.The arrested individuals face charges of abuse of power, sources told the state-run news agency TASS.Unconfirmed reports from the Telegram news channel VChK-OGPU claim that four people were arrested, including three former deputies of the state-owned corporation Rosnano, which Chubais led for over a decade.
The channel, without citing its sources, identified two of the detainees as former Rosnano executives Boris Podolsky and Artur Galstyan.Chubais himself may be a target of the investigation, with estimated damages of 45 billion rubles ($457.7 million).The Moscow Times could not independently verify that report.Chubais served as the Kremlins climate envoy before resigning and leaving Russia shortly after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
He later settled in Israel, where he founded a research center at Tel Aviv University.President Vladimir Putin has suggested that Chubais fled Russia to evade potential criminal prosecution over financial irregularities at Rosnano.
Other officials have called for his extradition on corruption charges.