Extortion trial reveals intrigue around Kremlin

MOSCOW — Russia’s former economics minister was handed an eight-year prison sentence Friday after being convicted in a $2 million extortion scheme involving a top associate of President Vladimir Putin.

The high-profile trial of Alexei Ulyukayev has been widely seen as part of infighting between Kremlin clans. Ulyukayev was a key member of a group of liberalminded technocrats in the Cabinet, while his accuser, Igor Sechin, is the most prominent representative of the hardline flank of the Russian elite.

Sechin heads Russia’s largest oil producer, Rosneft, and his clout is second only to that of Putin.

The 61-year-old Ulyukayev is the highestranking Russian official to be arrested in more than two decades. The case was viewed by many as Sechin’s personal vendetta against Ulyukayev, who had been critical of a Rosneft privatization plan proposed by Sechin.

Ulyukayev was detained a year ago at Rosneft’s headquarters following a sting operation by the Federal Security Service, the main KGB successor agency.

Sechin claimed in written testimony that Ulyukayev was extorting a bribe from him in exchange for issuing a positive assessment of Rosneft’s bid to take over another oil company, Bashneft.

Ulyukayev denied the charges, calling them a provocation set up by Sechin. The minister argued that a person would have to be insane to try to extort a bride from the powerful Sechin.

Ulyukayev’s lawyers said they would appeal the verdict.

A Russian human rights activist, Moscow Helsinki Group head Lyudmila Alexeyeva, criticized the verdict as “horribly cruel.”

In his final arguments earlier this month, Ulyukayev accused Sechin of staging a “horrific and cruel provocation” against him.

In November 2016, Ulyukayev showed up at Rosneft’s office at Sechin’s invitation to discuss the company’s operations, and accepted a bag from Sechin while leaving. He was then arrested by the FSB, which said it opened the bag and found it full of cash.

Ulyukayev testified at the trial that he thought that the bag contained several bottles of wine that Sechin had promised as a gift to him.