A deputy head of Russia’s Interior Ministry resigns, after his subordinate is arrested for corruption

Russian Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Makhonov resigned on Friday, following the arrest of one of his subordinates on corruption charges. A ministry spokesperson told reporters that Makhonov’s resignation demonstrates the MVD’s commitment to its managers’ personal responsibility for their staff.

On October 17, police detained Andrey Nechayev, the chief designer of the Russian Interior Ministry’s IT system, at an exhibition where he was supposed to speak along with Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev. On October 18, Nechayev was formally placed under arrest, on charges of abusing his authority.

The case against Nechayev is reportedly tied to the Interior Ministry’s IT system, which he helped create. The system is a mix of software and hardware operating in multiple departments of the ministry. The government spent 1.5 billion rubles ($26 million) creating the system, but investigators say Nechayev and his still unnamed accomplices may have received sizeable kickbacks from contractors.