The former governor of central Russia’s Tambov region was arrested and placed in pre-trial detention on charges of abuse of power, state media and court authorities said Thursday.

Maksim Yegorov, who served as governor from 2021 to 2024, is suspected of taking a “large bribe,” the TASS news agency reported, citing police sources familiar with the matter. Investigators carried out searches at multiple locations linked to him, including in Moscow and the Tambov region.

Moscow’s Meshchansky District Court later confirmed Yegorov’s arrest, saying that he would be held in pre-trial detention for at least two months on charges of abuse of power. It did not mention any bribe allegations.

Yegorov worked in the private sector before joining the Tambov regional government in 2016. He later held a post in the Construction Ministry.

President Vladimir Putin appointed him as the acting governor of Tambov in October 2021, and he was subsequently elected to the role in September 2022.

Putin replaced Yegorov in November 2024 with Yevgeny Pervyshov, the former mayor of the southern city of Krasnodar, who had fought in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Over the past year, a growing number of senior officials across Russia have faced criminal investigations into alleged corruption, particularly in regions bordering Ukraine, amid reports of embezzlement of funds allocated for border defenses.