Former Vladivostok Mayor Igor Pushkaryov. Photo: social media
A former mayor of Vladivostok who is serving a 15-year jail sentence for corruption is to be released from prison to fight for the Russian military in Ukraine, the second time a former mayor of the Russian Far East city will have been released from prison to join the country’s war effort this year, state-affiliated business daily Kommersant reported on Sunday.
Igor Pushkaryov, who served as mayor of the major port city from 2008 to 2017 before his imprisonment in 2019, has signed a contract with Russia’s Defence Ministry, according to his lawyer, Ruslan Omelchenko, while a source close to the ex-mayor said he would be “taking part in the special military operation in Ukraine”.
It is not clear whether Pushkaryov has already travelled to Ukraine or what role he will play in the Russian military there, as neither Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service nor the Prosecutor General’s Office responded to Kommersant’s requests for comment.
Pushkaryov was sentenced to 15 years behind bars in 2019 after a Moscow court found he accepted bribes worth 75 million rubles (€1.02 million at the time) to block companies from bidding on municipal road construction contracts in Vladivostok between 2009 and 2015.
In 2022, a Vladivostok court found him guilty of abusing his position in a second criminal case, stating that he had pushed transport companies out of the market and granted “preferential treatment” to municipal enterprises despite the fact that their vehicle fleet was of insufficient size to provide adequate transportation services.
Remarkably, Pushkaryov is the second former mayor of Vladivostok jailed for corruption to be given early release to fight in Ukraine this year.
In January, Oleg Gumenyuk, who served as the city’s mayor from 2019 to 2021 and was sentenced to 12 years behind bars for accepting bribes worth 38 million rubles (€394,000 at the time) during his time in office, was also freed to fight in Ukraine after signing a contract with Russia’s Defence Ministry.
