The Telegraph:

Mr Ulyukayev, 60, is the highest-ranking Russian official to be arrested while in office since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the only serving minister since Lavrenty Beria, Stalin’s feared secret police chief, was detained and shot in a power struggle following the dictator’s death in 1953.

Officers from the Investigative Committee, the country’s top detective agency, and the Federal Security Service, the successor to the KGB, swooped on Mr Ulyukayev at 2:30 AM on Tuesday.

[…]

The judge placed Mr Ulyukayev under house arrest and ordered him to wear an electronic tag after officials from the Investigative Committee argued he was a flight risk.

Mr Putin dismissed Mr Ulyukayev in a decree published late on Tuesday, citing “loss of confidence”.

Earlier, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Mr Putin had been informed about the case when the investigation was launched. “These are serious allegations,” Peskov said. “Only a court can deliver a verdict.”

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